Abstract
How does the cerium (Ce) doping in ferrimagnetic magnetite (Fe3O4) affect the crosslinking state and kinetics of epoxy crosslinking with amine curing agents? To answer this question, we electrochemically synthesized nanoparticles of Ce–Fe3O4 and characterized them by FTIR, XRD, FE‐SEM, EDX, TEM, and XPS analyses. The presence of Ce atoms in Fe3O4 crystalline lattice increased the surface area and active hydroxyl sites of the prepared magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) associated with partial shrinkage of molecular lattice. The MNPs uniformly dispersed in epoxy resin and unconditionally tagged epoxy nanocomposites as Excellent cured systems. The effect of lanthanide doping on the cure kinetics of epoxy with amine was explored applying nonisothermal DSC and model‐free kinetic approaches, signifying that Ce–Fe3O4 nanoparticles facilitated epoxy ring opening by intensification of etherification reaction whatever the heating rate. Even at very low loading of Ce–Fe3O4 nanoparticles into the epoxy (0.1 wt.%), the average apparent activation energy significantly decreased by ≈10%. This outcome would highlight the role of crosslinking on the ultimate properties, such as anticorrosive and/or self‐healing characteristics contributed by Ce‐doped nanoparticles once added to epoxy coating formulation.
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