Curing kinetics of lignin and cardanol based novolac epoxy resin with methyl tetrahydrophthalic anhydride

• Lignin–cardanol based novolac epoxy resin was prepared by reacting epichlorohydrin with the mixture of lignin and cardanol.
• Curing kinetics of lignin–cardanol based novolac epoxy resin with methyl tetrahydrophthalic anhydride was studied.
• The Sestak–Berggren model (SB (m, n)) was able to simulate the reaction process favorably.
• The isothermal conversion predicted from the nonisothermal data matched perfectly with experimental data.

Lignin and cardanol based novolac epoxy resin (LCNE) was prepared by reacting epichlorohydrin with the mixture of lignin and cardanol (2/3 in weight ratio). Kinetics of the curing reaction between LCNE and methyl tetrahydrophthalic anhydride (MeTHPA) was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and model-free kinetic (MFK) analysis. The apparent activation energy (Ea) of the curing reaction was obtained from Friedman's model-free method. The kinetic model and other kinetic parameters were determined by Málek's method and the reaction process could be simulated favorably by Sestak–Berggren (SB (m, n)) model. Furthermore, the kinetic equation obtained from nonisothermal data was applied to predict the isothermal conversion processes of the crosslinking reaction. The results demonstrated the calculated data from the obtained kinetic equation matched perfectly with the isothermal experimental data.

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