Influence of intramolecular specific interactions on phase behavior of epoxy resin and poly(ε-caprolactone) blends cured with aromatic amines

Two aromatic amines were used as the curing agents to prepare the thermosetting blends of epoxy and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL). When cured with 4,4′-methylenebis(2-chloroaniline) (MOCA), the thermosetting blends are miscible in the amorphous state in the entire composition, which was evidenced by the behavior of single, and composition-dependent glass transition temperatures (Tg's) in terms of thermal analysis. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) showed that there are the intermolecular specific interactions (viz. hydrogen bonding) between the component polymers. However, the 4,4′-diaminodiphenylsulfone (DDS)-cured epoxy forms the immiscible blends with PCL. The blends displayed a typical reaction-induced phase separation morphology. The phase behavior seems to be more than the expected since it was ever proposed that there would be the intermolecular specific interactions between amine-cured epoxy and PCL, which would fulfill the miscibility of the systems. To interpret the phase behavior, we investigated that the miscibility and intermolecular specific interactions in the blends of model compounds and linear homologues of epoxy with PCL. It was observed that in MOCA-cured blends there were much stronger intermolecular specific interactions than in DDS-cured counterparts. The weaker intermolecular specific interactions between DDS-cured epoxy and PCL resulted from the formation of the intramolecular hydrogen bonding interactions within DDS-crosslinked epoxy, which were involved with the sulfonyl groups and the secondary hydroxyls. The intramolecular association could suppress the formation of the strong intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions between carbonyls and hydroxyls of amine-cured epoxy, which are sufficient to fulfill the homogenization of the system during the in situ polymerization. Therefore, the presence of the intramolecular specific interactions between sulfonyl and hydroxyl groups was taken as the origin of phase-separated morphology for DDS-cured blends of epoxy with PCL.