High-performance wholly aromatic polyamide–hydrazides: Achievements and future prospects

The review summarizes the various methods of preparing wholly aromatic polyamide–hydrazides (PAHs). Polyhydrazides are a class of polymers that possess in their repeating units one amide (–NHOC–) and one hydrazide (–CONHNHOC–) linking bond between appropriate aromatic nuclei. The review provides several figures of different molecular structures of PAH and expounds the methods of polymerization, low, high temperature, and phosphorylation polycondensation methods. Polyhydrazides exhibit some unique and potentially useful properties such as outstanding thermal and thermo-oxidative resistance, very high mechanical strength, and ultrahigh moduli. PAHs undergo structural transformation into poly(amide-1,3,4-oxadiazole)s upon heating, which are also considered highly thermally stable polymers. The review presents a description of the structure–property relation of PAHs. The application of PAHs in reverse osmosis applications has been discussed, as well as the preparation of fibers and metallized PAHs films. Modification of the PAH with carbon nanotubes and graphene and the future prospects for PAHs were introduced with comprehensive references pertaining to this area of research.