Synergetic catalytic effect of carbon nanotubes and polyethersulfone on polymerization of glassy epoxy-based systems – isothermal kinetic modelling

•DSC kinetic data can be fitted to a modified autocatalytic Kamal–Sourour model.•Presence of PES alone does not affect the crosslinking mechanism of epoxy system.•MWCNTs highly increase the rate constant of non-catalysed epoxy–amine reaction.•Synergetic catalytic effect of MWCNTs and PES on the epoxy kinetics was observed.

The effect of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and polyethersulfone (PES) on the polymerization kinetics of N,N,N′,N′-tetraglycidyl-4,4′-diaminodiphenyl-methane epoxy resin (TGMDA) and 4,4diaminodiphenyl-methane-methylenebis(2,6-diethylaniline) hardener (MDEA) was studied by means of isothermal differential scanning calorimetry. The autocatalytic (Kamal–Sourour) model was applied to fit the experimental values of epoxy conversion and the total reaction order of 3 with partial orders m and n both equal to 1.5 were found. PES alone did not have any significant effect on epoxy crosslinking kinetics due to its phase separation at the beginning of the epoxy–amine reaction. The presence of MWCNTs substantially increases the epoxy reaction rate but lowers the final epoxy conversion. The important synergetic catalytic effect of MWCNTs and PES on the epoxy kinetics was observed.