Morphology and properties of UV-curing epoxy acrylate coatings modified with methacryl-POSS

In this work, the morphology and properties of UV-curing epoxy acrylate (EA) coatings modified with methacryl polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (M-POSS) were studied. The M-POSS nanocages were introduced into EA UV-curing system via copolymerization at loadings between 0% and 10 wt%. The XRD and FTIR analysis indicated that M-POSS chemically incorporated into the hybrid materials and formed a cross-linked network between M-POSS and EA. The morphological analysis showed that the discrete spherical POSS-rich particles were dispersed in the EA matrix uniformly, and both of the number and mean diameter of POSS-rich particles increased with the increasing M-POSS loadings. The influence of M-POSS on the kinetics of the photopolymerization was determined by real time FTIR spectroscopy and the result showed that the addition of POSS enhanced both of the UV-curing rates and final double bond conversion. The DMA analysis showed that increasing the amount of M-POSS nanocages caused an increase on the nanocomposite's Tg. TGA curves showed that at the later period of degradation process, the thermal stability of nanocomposites was enhanced by M-POSS. With respect to the mechanical properties, the most remarkable trend was an improvement on the impact resistance of nanocomposites with the increasing POSS contents. Because both of the craze and plasticity deformation caused by POSS nanocages would absorb impact energy, hinder the growth of craze.