Curing kinetic study using a well-controlled multifunctional copolymer based on glycidyl methacrylate

The curing kinetics using a glycidyl methacrylate (GMA)-co-butyl acrylate (BA) statistical copolymer synthesized by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and a commercial linear diamine (Jeffamine (R) D-230) was investigated in the temperature range between 50 and 100 degrees C. Isothermal experiments using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were performed to determine all the kinetics parameters, such as the reaction orders, the activation energy and the rate constants, based on an autocatalytic mechanism proposed by Kamal. The isoconversion method was used to evaluate the variation of the effective activation energy with the extension of the conversion that seems slightly decrease initially, and then increases as the cure reaction proceeds. In addition, dynamic kinetic parameters were calculated from non-isothermal experiments using the Kissinger and Ozawa methods. The resulting epoxy resin presents similar physical characteristics to some reported in the literature. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.