Morphologic and kinetic study of an epoxy-poly(ethyleneoxide) system. The fluorescence to predict miscibility

The kinetic of the curing process in the ethylenediamine (EDA)-poly (bisphenol A-co-epichlorohydrin) glycidyl end-capped (DGEBA) mixture modified with poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) was studied. The epoxy component was labeled with a fluorescence group (dansyl) treating the DGEBA with the reactive dansyl derivative DNS-EDA. Dynamic DSC experiments were carried out and from their results the effect of the PEO composition on the epoxy curing was discussed. Furthermore, the effect of cure temperature and PEO composition on the morphology and crystallinity of the blend were studied as well. The morphologic study was carried out using complementarily optical transmission (TOM) and epifluorescence (EFM) microscopy. It was observed that: i) the addition of a non-reactive thermoplastic leads to a dilution effect of the reactive groups and therefore a decrease of the epoxy amine reaction rate; ii) the PEO composition does not seem to affect the non catalyzed process of the epoxy curing, while an increase in the PEO fraction within the epoxy/PEO mixture seems to change the mechanism of the cure reaction; iii) dynamic DSC scans, TOM and EFM images and steady state fluorescence spectra of the cured samples suggest that when the curing temperature increases there is an increase in the miscibility between PEO and the epoxy-amine reaction mixture; and iv) a reduction in the PEO/cured epoxy miscibility as the fraction of PEO increases was observed.