A green approach to the synthesis and morphological control of high performance polyimides and their nanohybrid shish-kebabs in glycerol through reaction-induced crystallization of nylon-salt-type monomers was reported. Crystalline polyimide nanoplates can be observed by direct polycondensation of pyromellitic acid with various kinds of aliphatic or aromatic diamines. With the existence of carbon nanotubes

the polyimides can be successfully decorated on the surface of CNTs through a reaction-induced hetero-epitaxial crystallization process

and resulted in novel polyimide/CNT nanohybrid shish-kebabs (NHSKs) structures. The morphologies of the NHSKs can be fine-tuned through changing the concentration of monomers or the reaction temperature

especially through the introduction of dynamic imine chemistry

the formation process of NHSKs can be attributed to a soft epitaxy mechanism. Thus a green approach for the synthesis of high performance polyimides and their CNT based nanohybrid structures was explored

which should be of great value for their applications in high performance reinforced nanocomposites.