Study of chemo-rheological behavior of newly developed N-benzylquinoxalinium hexafluoroantimonate/diglycidylether of bisphenol A system

Abstract

Cure reactions of epoxy resin with a newly developed cationic catalyst (N-benzylquinoxalinium hexafluoroantimonate, N-BQH) were investigated by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The change of rheological property during the cure reaction was studied by dynamic shear measurements. The cure reaction involves three consecutive reactions and the overall kinetic parameters for these reactions were obtained by using the isothermal DSC technique. This catalytic epoxy resin system seems to contain the very complex kinetic reaction mechanisms. The cross-linking activation energies (E-e) for the various catalyst concentrations are in the range of 56 to 57 kJ mol(-1); these results show that the overall curing mechanisms are nearly the same. The damping factor curves after gel point showed fluctuating behavior with curing time, especially in the case of 5.0 mol % sample.