Thermodegradation kinetics of a hybrid inorganic-organic epoxy system

Lifetime of the epoxy system formed by diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A, DGEBA/4,4′-diaminediphenylmethane, DDM, modified with the silsesquioxane, glycidylisobutyl-POSS, was calculated from thermogravimetric analysis. The activation energy of the decomposition of this system was evaluated by the integral method developed by Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (E = 88.9 ± 2.1 kJ mol−1) and by Coats and Redfern method (E = 85.2 ± 1.5 kJ mol−1). The kinetic parameters have been used to estimate the lifetime of the system POSS/DGEBA/DDM. The obtained results by two different ways are similar.