Abstract: A novel pyridine-containing aromatic diamine monomer,4-phenyl-2,6-bis[4-(4-aminoph enoxy) phenyl]pyridine (ρ-PAPP) was successfully synthesized via nucleophilic substitution reaction, modified Chichibabin reaction, and catalytic reduction with hydrazine monohydrate,4-hydroxyacetophenone and benzaldehyde. Based on this, a pyridine-containing polyimide was synthesized via conventional two-step method by using ρ-PAPP as a diamine monomer, 2,2-bis[4-(3,4dicarboxyphenoxy)phenyl] propane dianhydride as a dianhydride monomer in N,N-dimethylformamide(DMF).The structure and properties of the polymer were characterized by FTIR, DSC, TGA, XRD, solubility testing. There were characteristic peaks of polyimide around 1780、1723、1378 cm-1 in the FTIR spectrum. The polyimide was soluble in common organic solvents. The polyimide had good thermal stability with glass transition temperature(Tg) of 191.2 °C, the temperature at 10 % weight loss was 473.8 °C in nitrogen atmosphere and the residual mass at 800 °C was 43 %. The other properties included tensile strengths of 98.5 MPa, tensile modulus of 1.24 GPa, and water uptake of 0.67 %.

Key words: preparation, pyridine-containing diamine, polyimide, solubilty