Imide

In terms of commercial applications, imides are best known as components of high-strength polymers, called polyimides.

Inorganic imides are also known as solid state or gaseous compounds, and the imido group (=NH) can also act as a ligand.

The PubChem links gives access to more information on the compounds, including other names, ids, toxicity and safety.

Unlike the structurally related acid anhydrides, they resist hydrolysis and some can even be recrystallized from boiling water.

One example is Kapton where the repeat unit consists of two imide groups derived from aromatic tetracarboxylic acids.

A commercial polyglutarimide product based on the methylamine derivative of PMMA, called Kamax, was produced by the Rohm and Haas company.

Most common imides are prepared by heating dicarboxylic acids or their anhydrides and ammonia or primary amines.

A general linear imide functional group
Illustrative imides, from left: N -ethylmaleimide , a biochemical reagent; phthalimide , an industrial chemical intermediate; Captan , a controversial pesticide; thalidomide , a drug that once caused many birth defects; a subunit of Kapton , a high strength polymer used to make space suits .