Investigation of the curing reactions of some multifunctional epoxy resins using differential scanning calorimetry

Curing reaction of three tetrafunctional epoxy resins in the presence of tetraethylene tetramine was examined by differential scanning calorimetry at different heating rates. The kinetic parameters of the curing reaction were determined using various computational methods (Barrett, Borchardt-Daniels and Kissinger). The heating rate shows a great influence on the curing process. The activation energy varied in the range 43-80 kJ/mol, and the order of the curing reaction is observed to be approximate to1.0 with slight variations. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.