Mechanism Studies on Water Sorption and Permeation in Epoxy Resin by Impedance Spectroscopy. II. Cure Kinetics of O-Cresol Novolac Resin with Esterfied Phenol Novolac Resin

Abstract

Abstract To study the effect of water affinity of the cured epoxy resin on water sorption and permeation in the cured epoxy resin, a novel hardener (esterfied phenol novolac was synthesized and used for obtaining the cured product without free hydroxyl group. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) were used to study the cure kinetics of o-cresol novolac epoxy resin using esterfied phenol novolac resin as curing agent in the presence of 2-methylimidazole as accelerator. Some kinetic parameters of the curing reaction such as the reaction order, activation energy, and frequency factor were obtained in the temperature range studied. The results show that this curing process is a first-order kinetic mechanism, which was different with that cured with phenol novolac resin.