Curing kinetics of nanostructured epoxy blends toughened with epoxidized carboxyl-terminated liquid rubber

• Epoxidized liquid rubber is used to toughen epoxy resin.
• Curing kinetics is studied by dynamic DSC method under non-isothermal conditions.
• Málek method is used to determine the most suitable kinetic model.

The curing kinetics of epoxy resin/rubber blends containing different contents of epoxidized carboxyl-terminated butadiene acrylonitrile (ECTBN) with different epoxidation degrees is studied using non-isothermal differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) at different heating rates. Kissinger method is used to calculate the apparent activation energies, and Málek method is used to determine the most suitable kinetic model characterizing the curing process. The results show that the curing reaction is catalyzed by the hydroxyl and carboxyl groups in ECTBNs, whereas hindered by the viscosity increment owing to addition of rubber. Within the chemical reaction control stage, the curing process could be well described by the two-parameter autocatalytic kinetic model of Šesták–Berggren, and the simulated curves calculated by Šesták–Berggren model show a good agreement with that experimentally determined.

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