Low-temperature cure high-performance cyanate ester resins/microencapsulated catalyst systems

The encapsulated catalyst can be released under stimulation conditions to control the polymerization reaction. In this study, poly(urea-formaldehyde) (PUF) microcapsules (MCs) filled with dibutyltin dilaurate (DBTDL) catalyst (PUF/DBTDL MCs) were applied to bisphenol A dicyanate ester (BADCy) resins to develop a novel low temperature cure high performance BADCy/MCs systems. The effect of PUF/DBTDL MCs on the reactivity of BADCy was investigated. The mechanical property, the thermal property, the water uptake, and the dielectric property of cured BADCy/MCs resin systems were discussed in detail. Results indicate that roughly varying the content of the encapsulated DBTDL can easily and safely adjust the polymerization temperature. The BADCy systems with proper content of MCs cured at low temperature show excellent mechanical property, good thermal property, low water uptake, and low dielectric property. When the content of MCs is 0.125 wt%, the cured BADCy/MCs system has the optimal integrated properties owing to the formation of more uniform crosslinked structure and high conversion of cyanate ester (OCN) groups resulting from the slow release of DBTDL catalyst through the wall shell under heating condition. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2013. (c) 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers