Page 331 - Engineering Plastics Handbook

Chapter
13

Polyarylethersulfones (PAES)

Shari A. Weinberg
Jamal El-Hibri

Research Engineers, Sulfone Polymers
Solvay Advanced Polymers, LLC
Alpharetta, Georgia, USA

Overview
Polyarylethersulfones (PAES), also known as sulfone polymers or simply
polysulfones, are a class of amorphous high-temperature, high-performance
thermoplastic polymers. The polymers have an aromatic backbone struc-
ture comprised of phenyl rings, sulfone groups, and ether linkages, hence
the name polyarylethersulfones. The para-linked diaryl sulfone moiety is
the most distinguishing structural feature of a polyarylethersulfone:

O
S
O
These polymers are a subclass of the larger family of engineering polymers
known as polyarylethers that includes polyarylethersulfones, pol-
yaryletherketones, and polyaryletherimides.
The first of the sulfone polymers was introduced commercially by Union
®
Carbide Corp. in 1965 as Udel Polysulfone, and it carries the following
repeat unit structure:
CH 3 O
O C O S
CH 3 O

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