Isothermal Curing Kinetics and Thermal Degradation of o-CFER/MeTHPA/O-MMT Nanocomposite

Abstract

The isothermal curing kinetics of nanocomposite of o-cresol-formaldehyde epoxy resin (o-CFER), 3-methyl-tetrahydrophthalic anhydride (MeTHPA) with organic montmorillonite (O-MMT) were investigated by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) using N,N-dimethyl-benzylamine as a curing accelerant. The XRD result indicates that an exfoliated O-MMT nanocomposite was obtained. The analysis of DSC data indicated that an autocatalytic behavior appeared in the first stages of the cure for the system, which could be well described by the Kamal model. In the later stages, the reaction is mainly controlled by diffusion and a diffusion factor, f(α), was introduced into Kamal's equation. In this way, the curing kinetics were predicted well over the entire range of conversion. The thermal degradation kinetics of this composite were investigated by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), which revealed that with increasing O-MMT content, TG curves shift to higher temperature.