The effect of a renewable fatty acid derivatives based epoxy diluent on the curing kinetics and thermal properties of epoxy/anhydride systems

The diglycidyl ether of dimer diol (DGEDD) was synthesized and the curing kinetics of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A/hexahydrophthalic anhydride/tris-(dimethylaminomethyl)phenol (DGEBA/HHPA/DMP-30) system with and without DGEDD as reactive diluent were investigated by non-isothermal DSC technique with Málek method. The dynamic mechanical properties and thermal stabilities of the cured systems with different contents of DGEDD were evaluated using DMTA and TGA, respectively. The results showed that the activation energy calculated by advanced isoconversional method for DGEBA/HHPA/DMP-30 system with DGEDD was slightly higher than that of DGEBA/HHPA/DMP-30 system without DGEDD, and Å esták-Berggren model can simulate well the curing reaction rates of both systems. DMTA showed that the storage moduli of all the cured systems were similar in glassy region and decreased with increasing DGEDD content in rubbery region, and Tg diminished with increasing DGEDD content. TGA showed that loading DGEDD had little impact on the thermal stabilities of the cured systems.