Preparation and characterization of novel dicyanate/benzoxazine/bismaleimide copolymer

• The isoconversional method was used to describe the curing kinetics parameters of the modified systems.
• The mechanical and thermal properties of the copolymers were found to be a higher than that of BOZ/BMI system.
• The moisture absorption of the blends was found to be lower than that of the BOZ/BMI system.

In this paper, we reported the dicyanate/benzoxazine/bismaleimide copolymers using bisphenol A dicyanate (BADCy), 4,4′-bismaleimidodiphenyl methane (BMI) and bisphenol A benzoxazine (BOZ). BOZ/BMI was copolymerized with BADCy to improve toughness and processability. The non-isothermal curing kinetics of BADCy/BOZ/BMI copolymer was studied by the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) at various heating rates, and the isoconversional method was used to describe the apparent activation energy of the modified system. The properties of BADCy/BOZ/BMI copolymers, such as mechanical properties, thermal properties and moisture absorption, were systemically investigated in detail by mechanical measurement, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA). The results showed that the addition of the appropriate amount of BADCy could improve the impact strength and the flexural strength of the BADCy/BOZ/BMI copolymer, which could form an interpenetrating polymer network in the system. The thermal stability of the blends was found to be higher than that of the BOZ/BMI system, and the moisture absorption of the blends was found to be lower than that of the BOZ/BMI system.