Cure behaviors of epoxy resin initiated by methylanilinium salts as latent cationic curing agent

The effect of novel N-crotyl-N,N-dimethyl-4-methylanilinium hexafluoroantimonate (CMH) curing agent as a thermal latent initiator on thermal behaviors, rheological properties, and thermal stability of diglycidylether of bisphenol A(DGEBA) epoxy cationic system was investigated. From DSC measurements of DGEBA/CMH system, it was shown that this system exhibits an excellent thermal latent characteristic at a given temperature. The conversion and conversion rate of DGEBA/CMH system increased with increasing the concentration of initiator, due to high activity of CMH. Rheological properties of the system were investigated under isothermal condition using a rheometer. The gelation time was obtained from the analysis of storage modulus (G'), loss modulus (G "), and damping factor (tan delta). As a result, the reduction of gelation time was affected by high curing temperature and concentration of CMH, resulting in high degree of network formation in cationic polymerization, due to difference of activity. The thermal stability of the cured epoxy resin was discussed in terms of the activation energy for decomposition and thermal factors determined from TGA measurements.