Kinetic study of the cure process at the silica microfibres/epoxy interface using pyrene fluorescence response

In the present work, using the pyrene fluorescence response, the kinetic of the cure process at the interface of a composite material is studied. Silica microfibres were surface coated with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), labelled with the pyrene group and dispersed in a mixture based on diglycidylether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) and ethylenediamine (EDA). The fluorescence of the pyrene was used to monitor, at different temperatures, the cure process at the epoxy/microfibres interface. A simple kinetic model was discussed from the fluorescence data and an apparent activation energy was obtained (Ea=33 kJ/mol). On the other hand, the cure process of the whole mixture was followed by FT-IR and by DSC and their results were compared with those obtained by fluorescence.