Water resistance and curing kinetics of epoxy resins with a novel curing agent of biphenyl-containing amine synthesized by one-pot method

In order to increase thermal stability and decrease water uptake of conventional epoxy resins, the biphenyl structure was introduced through the curing agent. A novel biphenyl-containing amine (BPDP) was synthesized by one-pot method and used as the curing agent for bisphenol-A epoxy resin DGEBA. Thermal property, water uptake and curing kinetics of the co-cured epoxy with diaminodiphenyl methane (DDM) were studied. The introduction of BPDP obviously improved the thermal stability, char yield, and water-uptake of the cured epoxy resins. The glass transition temperature Tg and weight-loss temperature increased with increasing BPDP content in the co-curing agent of BPDP and DDM. BPDP showed lower reactivity toward epoxy DGEBA than DDM with higher apparent activation energy Ea. Curing reaction of the epoxy resins co-cured with BPDP and DDM was investigated by non-isothermal DSC and the curing kinetics was described by a truncated two-parameter autocatalytic equation of the Å esták-Berggren model with experimentally determined parameters, which fitted the observed non-isothermal curing reaction rate quantitatively.