Crossing over the curing and degradation of DGEBA/MTHPA/Eggshell to disclose the reactionary system

Abstract

Degradation mechanisms and curing on diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A/methyl tetrahydrophthalic anhydride with 2,4,6-tris (dimethylaminomethyl) phenol as synthetic catalyst or eggshell membrane as natural catalyst, i.e., DGEBA/MTHPA/DEH 35 and DGEBA/MTHPA/M, respectively, were investigated by thermogravimetry (TGA) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Thermal stability as commonly reported by TGA in this work was followed up by FTIR, enabling to specify the produced chemical groups from each degradation step. Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of kinetics mechanisms using Friedman, Kissinger, Criado and Coats-Redfern models, were performed and the activation energy (Ea) was computed, as presented the degradation energy for eggshell membrane compound is lower than the curing one, contributing to the latter's favorability. Reactionary schemes based on the theoretical models are proposed in an attempt to macroscopically demonstrate the microscopic morphological changes and reactions.