Bisphenol-A epoxy resin reinforced and toughened by hyperbranched epoxy resin

Abstract

The study on toughening and reinforcing of bisphenol-A epoxy resin is one of important developmental direction in the field. This paper reports a one-pot synthesis of aromatic polyester hyperbranched epoxy resin HTDE-2, an effect of HTDE-2 content on the mechanical and thermal performance of the bisphenol-A (E51)/HTDE-2 hybrid resin in detail. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrometer, scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calo ri metry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMA) and molecular simula tion technology are used to study the structure of HTDE-2, performance and toughening and reinforcing mechanism of the HTDE-2/E51 hybrid resin. It has been shown that the content of HTDE-2 has an important effect on the performance of the hybrid resin, and the performance of the HTDE-2/E51 blends has maximum with the increase in HTDE-2 content. The impact strength and fracture toughness of the hybrid resin with 9 wt-% HTDE-2 are almost 3.088 and 1.749 times of E51 performance respectively, furthermore, the tensile and flexural strength can also be enhanced about 20.7% and 14.2%, respectively. The glass transition temperature and thermal degradation temperature, however, are found to decrease to some extent.