Study on curing kinetics of a diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A epoxy resin/microencapsulated curing agent system

A modified imidazole curing agent, EMI-g-BGE, was encapsulated for one-package of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) epoxy resin system. Polyetherimide (PEI) was used as the wall material, and the emulsion solvent evaporation method was used to form the microcapsules. The morphology and particle size distribution of microcapsules were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), mastersizer analyzer. Microcapsules exhibited spherical shapes and the mean particle size was about 745 nm. The curing kinetic of DGEBA/microcapsules curing agent was studied by nonisothermal differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technique at different heating rates. Dynamic DSC scans indicated the microcapsule was an effective curing agent of epoxy resin. The apparent activation energy E-a was 88.03 kJ/mol calculated through Kissinger method, more than DGEBA/EMI-g-BGE system. This microcapsule of EMI-g-BGE exhibited a long shelf life, and the curing did not occur in this epoxy-microcapsule resin system for more than 3months at room temperature. The kinetic parameters were determined by Malek method and a two-parameter (m, n) autocatalytic model (Sestak-Berggren equation) was found to be the most adequate selected kinetic model, which showed the encapsulation of the curing agent EMI-g-BGE did not change the cure reaction mechanism of the epoxy resin system. From the experimental data, the nonisothermal DSC curves show the results being in accordant with those theoretically calculated.