Abstract :
Autocatalytic cure kinetics for an epoxy system was studied by isothermal DSC analysis. The system used in this study was the diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A(DGEBA)/4,4′-methylene dianiline (MDA) system with various contents of phenyl glycidyl ether (PGE)-acetamide (AcAm). Regardless of the PGE-AcAm content, the shape of the conversion curves was sigmoid, and this meant that DGEBA/MDA/PGE-AcAm system underwent an autocatalytic cure reaction. When the PGE-AcAm content increased, the cure rate increased due to the catalytic role of hydroxyl groups of PGE-AcAm. From the comparison between theoretical prediction and experimental data, it was found that the autocatalytic expression correctly represented to analyze the cure kinetics of these systems.
