Thermochimica Acta, Vol.654, 112-120, 2017
Study of curing kinetics of anhydride cured petroleum-based (DGEBA) epoxy resin and renewable resource based epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) systems catalyzed by 2-methylimidazole
The non-isothermal curing kinetics of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A (DGEBA) and bio-based epoxy resin (ESO) both cured with methyl hexahydrophthalic anhydride (MHHPA) curing agent in the presence of 2-methylimi-dazole as catalyst (2-MI) was investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) at three different heating rates 5, 10, 15 degrees C/min. The peak temperature was found to be dependent on the heating rates and the structure of anhydride as well as molar ratio of epoxy groups to MHHPA and catalyst. The activation energy (E-a) was determined by Kissinger and Ozawa methods. The two kinetic parameter m and n were obtained by Sestak Berggren autocatalytic model. The curve obtained by the predicted values of the non-isothermal Malek method matched perfectly with the experimental data for DGEBA, ESO and their blend.