Issue 12, 2013
From the journal:

RSC Advances

Exploring resin viscosity effects in solventless processing of nano-SiO2/epoxy polymer hybrids

Adeel Afzal,*abc   Humaira Masood Siddiqi,*a   Shaukat Saeedd  and  Zahoor Ahmade  

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Chemistry, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, 45320, Pakistan
E-mail: humairas@qau.edu.pk
Fax: +92 51 9064 2241
Tel: +92 51 9064 2148

b Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Biomedical Materials, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Defence Road, Off. Raiwind Road, Lahore, 54000, Pakistan
E-mail: aa@aafzal.com

c Affiliated Colleges at Hafr Al-Batin, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Hafr Al-Batin, 31991, Saudi Arabia.

d Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Islamabad, 45650, Pakistan.

e Department of Chemistry, Kuwait University, Safat, 13060, Kuwait.

Abstract

Bisphenol A diglycidylether (DGEBA) based low viscosity, liquid epoxy resins are widely used as basis for advanced polymers and nanocomposites, adhesives, protective coatings and encapsulation. We present “green” synthesis of nano-SiO2/epoxy polymer hybrids by a two-step chronological polymerization of inorganic and organic monomers without the use of diluents (solvents). Two types of liquid epoxy resins, D.E.R. 330 and D.E.R. 332, are used to demonstrate the influence of resin viscosity on microstructure, tensile strength and thermal stability of resulting hybrids. Obviously, differences in viscosity of two epoxy resins originate from variations in respective chain lengths, i.e. molar mass, which affect the overall crosslink density and properties of hybrids. In addition, grafting of nano-SiO2 phases with organosilane is performed to achieve inorganic–organic (IO) phase interlinking and to investigate its consequences. Nano-SiO2/epoxy hybrids are characterized by FTIR spectroscopy and XPS. AFM is used to study microstructure and surface properties of hybrids. AFM images show good distribution of nano-SiO2 phases within epoxy polymer. It is observed that the size of nano-SiO2 grows significantly, if resin viscosity is increased or if covalent IO phase interlinks are not present. Tensile measurements show considerable improvement in strength and modulus of nano-SiO2/epoxy polymer hybrids as compared to neat epoxy polymers. DSC and TGA also demonstrate an increase in glass transition temperature (Tg) and thermal stability. We observe that viscosity effects are evenly pronounced in solventless processing of nano-SiO2/epoxy polymer hybrids, and small changes in resin viscosity influence the miscibility of IO phases, the dispersion of SiO2 and the performance of resulting hybrids.

Graphical abstract: Exploring resin viscosity effects in solventless processing of nano-SiO2/epoxy polymer hybrids

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C3RA21150A
Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 Jun 2012
Accepted
09 Jan 2013
First published
11 Jan 2013

RSC Adv., 2013,3, 3885-3892

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Exploring resin viscosity effects in solventless processing of nano-SiO2/epoxy polymer hybrids

A. Afzal, H. M. Siddiqi, S. Saeed and Z. Ahmad, RSC Adv., 2013, 3, 3885 DOI: 10.1039/C3RA21150A

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