Curing kinetics of solid epoxy/DDM/nanoclay: Isoconversional models versus fitting model

The curing behavior and kinetics of epoxy nanocomposites based on solid epoxy, diaminodiphenyl methane (DDM) and nano organoclay were studied. The curing kinetics of epoxy nanocomposites was elucidated by non-isothermal differential scanning calorimetry. The fitting model was used to calculate the kinetic parameters. The kinetics of the curing reaction was also evaluated by two different isoconversional models. The kinetic parameters calculated from fitting model were almost the same for neat epoxy system and nanocomposite systems indicating that the curing kinetics was not affected by the presence of nanoclay particles. However, the isoconversional models showed that the incorporation of nanoclay particles into the epoxy/DDM system had a significant effect on the trend of activation energy during the curing process. Therefore, it can be concluded that using isoconversional models would be a preferred method to elaborate the effect of nanoparticles on the curing mechanism of nanocomposite systems.