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Cure Kinetics of Epoxy/Block Copolymer Blends

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Handbook of Epoxy Blends

Abstract

This chapter deals with the study of the cure kinetics of epoxy/block copolymer blends in order to give a comprehensive account about the effect of adding this kind of modifier on the reaction rate of the network formation. Non-isothermal runs at constant heating rates and isothermal runs at constant temperature were carried out in order to determine the total heats of reaction released during curing for the epoxy blends modified with different contents of block copolymers. It was found a clearly delay of cure kinetics with the increase of block copolymer content. In order to understand the parameters affecting epoxy curing kinetics, the influence of block copolymer blocks chemical structure, and the molar ratio between blocks on the curing rate was also analyzed. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used for this purpose. The experimental curves of isothermal curing were fitted to a phenomenological autocatalytic model and also to mechanistic model. Kinetics parameters were calculated from the previous models. The increase observed in activation energy values with the increase of block copolymer content corroborated that the physical interactions between the block copolymer and the epoxy significantly affect the curing behavior, agreeing with the observed delay.

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Ocando, C., Fernandez, R., Corcuera, M.A., Eceiza, A. (2016). Cure Kinetics of Epoxy/Block Copolymer Blends. In: Parameswaranpillai, J., Hameed, N., Pionteck, J., Woo, E. (eds) Handbook of Epoxy Blends. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18158-5_36-1

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