Due to their outstanding heat resistance

chemical stability

membrane formation and mechanical properties as well as highly designable structures

polyimides (PIs) are a promising class of high-performance membrane materials for advanced gas separation applications. However

traditional polyimides are often insoluble and infusible

and show low permeability

physical aging and plasticization behavior

limiting their applications in membrane-based gas separation in industrial scale. Polyimides with intrinsic microporosity (PIM-PIs) exhibited improved gas separation performance as compared with the traditional PIs

while maintaining excellent heat resistance

good film formation and solution-processing ability. As a result

PIM-PIs have great potential in membrane-based gas separation applications. In this review

combined with the author’s research work

synthetic routes of various polyimides for gas separation membranes are reported

the influence of chemical structure (

e.g.

monomers)

aggregated structure (

e.g.

free volume fraction)

and membrane preparation methods on gas separation properties of the resulting PIs are clarified. Further

the modification methods including copolymerization

blending

and crosslinking of PIs in applications for membrane-based gas separation are discussed. Also

an outlook for the future direction of research and development of polyimides for membranebased gas separation and their advanced applications are also presented.