TABLE OF CONTENTS In the past few decades the demands of the household, automobile, construction and especially aerospace industries have provided the driving force for the development of new high-performance polymeric materials to be used in structural applications {755543}. The main goal of research in this area is the preparation of polymers possessing good thermal and oxidative stability, toughness, stiffness and retention of physical properties at high temperature. Most materials of this type are based on structures containing aromatic rings incorporated into the main chain for such polymer systems, a balance must be achieved between thermal stability and processability. On the other hand, extensive research on aromatic thermoplastic polymers potentially offers the favourable properties that make them very suitable for such applications.
As a result of their outstanding physical and mechanical properties, aromatic polyamides are attractive materials for use in high-performance structural applications {853072} {833611} {820253}, including aircraft components or fire protection garments, as constituents of both traditional, i.e., fibre-reinforced composites {774110} {762844}, and molecular composites. One of these applications takes advantage of their thermal stability {881232} {825031} {763791} {755849} and allows the manufacturing of heat-resistant materials for fire protection {713906}. In a different context, aromatic polyamides (aramid fibres) have been proposed in the past few years as precursors of activated carbon materials with distinctive adsorbent properties (thermally stable molecular sieves). Aramid fibres, e.g., poly( m-phenylene isophthalamide), poly( p-phenylene terephthalamide) {709654}, etc., are a class of synthetic polymers that possess excellent thermal and oxidative stability,...
