MECHANISM STUDIES ON WATER SORPTION AND PERMEATION IN EPOXY-RESIN BY IMPEDANCE SPECTROSCOPY .2. CURE KINETICS OF O-CRESOL NOVOLAC RESIN WITH ESTERFIED PHENOL NOVOLAC RESIN

To study the effect of water affinity of the cured epoxy resin on wate r sorption and permeation in the cured epoxy resin, a novel hardener( esterfied phenol novolac was synthesized and used for obtaining the cu red product without free hydroxyl group. Differential Scanning Calorim etry (DSC) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) were us ed to study the cure kinetics of o-cresol novolac epoxy resin using es terfied phenol novolac resin as curing agent in the presence of 2-meth ylimidazole as accelerator. Some kinetic parameters of the curing reac tion such as the reaction order, activation energy, and frequency fact or were obtained in the temperature range studied. The results show th at this curing process is a first-order kinetic mechanism, which was d ifferent with that cured with phenol novolac resin.