Investigation of mechanical properties and cure behavior of DGEBA/nano-Fe2O3 with polyamine dendrimer

The preparation of epoxy/iron (III) oxide nanoparticles (nano-Fe2O3) and studying the effect of nano-Fe2O3 on improving mechanical and thermal characteristics of the epoxy matrix, is highlighted in this work. Epoxy nanocomposites are prepared by dispersing nano-Fe2O3 in diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) and, subsequently, cross-linking by using polypropylenimine octaamine dendrimer (PPOD) as curing agent with low volatility. Preparation of epoxy/nano-Fe2O3 nanocomposites are carried out for different concentrations (0, 1, 5, 10 and 15%) of nano-Fe2O3. The mechanical experiments showed that the nano-Fe2O3 increasing from 0% to 10% led to an increase and 15% of nano-Fe2O3 led to a decrease in the tensile properties. Curing reaction kinetics of DGEBA/10% nano-Fe2O3 with PPOD was investigated by DSC at dynamic mode. A two-parameter (m, n) autocatalytic model (Sestak-Berggren equation) was found to be the most adequate selected kinetic model. The dynamic curing behavior of DGEBA/PPOD/10% nano-Fe2O3 could be described by ⅆα/ⅆt=7.1×109exp(−57,230/RT)(1−α)0.82α0.41.