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Cure Kinetics of Epoxy/Rubber Polymer Blends

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Abstract

During the past decades, the toughening of epoxy resins has received increasing attention because many different applications demand epoxy materials with improved mechanical properties. Different approaches have been employed to toughen the epoxy system: agents as liquid rubbers, block copolymers, core–shell particles, glass beads, epoxidized thermoplastics, hyperbranched organic, and hybrid compounds and combinations of them have been considered as toughening agents for epoxy systems. The morphology of epoxy resins and, consequently, their mechanical properties strongly depend on the cure kinetics, and in the case of soluble liquid rubbers, phase separation takes place as the polymerization proceeds. Subsequently, the evolution of size and distribution of the rubber particles in the epoxy during the curing reaction represents a critical point for the success of the effect of rubber systems in terms of mechanical improvement of neat resin system. Therefore, different methods have been studied and developed to control the cure kinetic parameters of epoxy resins, in order to develop models and control their final morphology and properties. Among them, some of the most used are those based on chemical changes such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and infrared (IR) spectroscopy methods, as well as those centered on bulk property changes such as rheological and pressure–volume–temperature (PVT) methods. In this chapter, these methods are discussed and the results obtained on toughening various types of epoxy systems are compared. Moreover, the studies are extended to nanostructured systems, where the presence of the nanofiller plays a crucial role in the evolution of the reaction kinetics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Materials Engineering Center, UdR INSTM, University of Perugia, Strada di Pentima, 05100, Terni, Italy

    Debora Puglia & José Maria Kenny

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  1. Debora Puglia
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  2. José Maria Kenny
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Correspondence to Debora Puglia .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Polymer Science and Rubber Technology, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, India

    Jyotishkumar Parameswaranpillai

  2. Institute for Frontier Materials, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria, Australia

    Nishar Hameed

  3. Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e.V., Dresden, Germany

    Jürgen Pionteck

  4. Department of Chemical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, China

    Eamor M. Woo

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Puglia, D., Kenny, J.M. (2017). Cure Kinetics of Epoxy/Rubber Polymer Blends. In: Parameswaranpillai, J., Hameed, N., Pionteck, J., Woo, E. (eds) Handbook of Epoxy Blends. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40043-3_8

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