Effect of nanosilica on the kinetics of cure reaction and thermal degradation of epoxy resin

Nanocomposites from nanoscale silica particles (NS), diglycidylether of bisphenol-A based epoxy (DGEBA), and 3,5-diamino-N-(4-(quinolin-8-yloxy) phenyl) benzamide (DQPB) as curing agent were obtained from direct blending of these materials. The effect of nanosilica (NS) particles as catalyst on the cure reaction of DGEBA/DQPB system was studied by using non-isothermal DSC technique. The activation energy (E _a) was obtained by using Kissinger and Ozawa equations. The E _a value of curing of DGEBA/DQPB/10% NS system showed a decrease of about 10 kJ/mol indicating the catalytic effect of NS particles on the cure reaction. The E _a values of thermal degradation of the cured samples of both systems were 148 kJ/mol and 160 kJ/mol, respectively. The addition of 10% of NS to the curing mixture did not have much effect on the initial decomposition temperature (T _i) but increased the char residues from 20% to 28% at 650°C.