Curing behaviors and properties of an extrinsic toughened epoxy/anhydride system and an intrinsic toughened epoxy/anhydride system

The curing kinetics of an extrinsic toughened epoxy (mixture of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A and 1,4-butanediol epoxy resin, DGEBA/DGEBD) and an intrinsic toughened epoxy (ethoxylated bisphenol-A epoxy resin with two oxyethylene units, DGEBAEO-2) using hexahydrophthalic anhydride (HHPA) as curing agent and tris-(dimethylaminomethyl) phenol (DMP-30) as accelerator were comparatively studied by non-isothermal DSC with a model-fitting Málek approach and a model-free advanced isoconversional method of Vyazovkin. The dynamic mechanical properties and thermal stabilities of the cured materials were investigated by DMTA and TGA, respectively. The results showed that Šesták–Berggren model can generally simulate well the reaction rates of these two systems. The activation energy of DGEBA/DGEBD/HHPA/DMP-30 at high fractional conversion changed much higher than that of DGEBAEO-2/HHPA/DMP-30, indicating the increased steric hindrance mainly affected the reaction kinetic scheme of DGEBA/DGEBD/HHPA/DMP-30. The Tg and storage moduli of cured DGEBAEO-2/HHPA/DMP-30 were lower than those of cured DGEBA/DGEBD/HHPA/DMP-30 according to DMTA while TGA showed that the thermal stabilities of these two cured systems were similar.

► Two curing systems (ETRS and ITRS) with similar chemical composite were prepared.
► The curing kinetics of the ETRS and the novel ITRS were comparatively studied.
► Crosslinking density can affect the kinetic schemes of the two curing systems.
► Their mechanical properties and thermal stabilities were also comparatively studied.
► Crosslinking density may play an influential role in mechanical properties.