Isothermal curing kinetics and mechanism of DGEBA epoxy resin with phthalide-containing aromatic diamine

The curing reaction of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) with a novel aromatic diamine containing phthalide structure (BAPP) was studied by differential scanning calorimetery (DSC). The optimal formulation of DGEBA/BAPP system was obtained in terms of the curing behavior and glass transition temperature determined by dynamic DSC. The nth-order reaction model and autocatalytic model were used to analyze the curing kinetics and mechanism based on the isothermal DSC technique. The results indicated that the Kamal autocatalytic model had a great agreement with the experimental data from the start of curing reaction to the initiation of diffusion control stage. Diffusion-controlled effect was also taken into account and then the extended Kamal model could describe precisely the curing reaction of BAPP/DGEBA in the entire conversion range.