Metal salts used as an efficient catalyst to reduce the ring opening polymerization temperature of benzoxazines

Abstract

An attempt was made to develop low-temperature curing aniline-based benzoxazines (BA-a/BF-a) using various transition metal salts, such as FeCl3, CoCl2, NiBr2, CuCl2, ZnCl2, Zn(OAc)2, CdCl2 and Alkali–Alkaline earth metal salts, such as LiCl, KI and CaCl2 and main group metal salt AlCl3 as an efficient catalyst. The findings of the DSC analysis revealed that the main group and transition metal salts had outstanding catalytic activity and were able to reduce the curing temperature of benzoxazines (BA-a/BF-a). Among the various metal salts, FeCl3, AlCl3, ZnCl2 and Zn(OAc)2 exposed excellent catalytic behavior in lowering the curing temperature of benzoxazines to 145 °C (BA-a) and 150 °C (BF-a) from 217 to 218 °C, respectively. The thermal stability and flame retardant characteristics of the resultant polybenzoxazines (PBz’s), are also studied and included in this work. In the presence of catalysts, the initial degradation temperature almost same, residual char yield increased from 27 to 55%, and the flame retardant properties increased to 39.5 from 28.5 for the resultant PBz’s.