Tm. Don et Jp. Bell, FOURIER-TRANSFORM INFRARED-ANALYSIS OF POLYCARBONATE EPOXY MIXTURES CURED WITH AN AROMATIC AMINE/, Journal of applied polymer science, 69(12), 1998, pp. 2395-2407
In our previous article, we established that polycarbonate (PC) can re
act with the diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A (DGEBA) at 200 degrees C
through transesterification and addition reactions, resulting in degra
ded PC chains with phenolic end groups and also in PC/DGEBA copolymers
. However, these reactions can be minimized or eliminated at lower tem
peratures, below 160 degrees C. In this article, Fourier transform inf
rared analysis (FTIR) was used to study the curing kinetics of epoxies
in the presence of PC. The curing agent was an aromatic amine, diamin
odiphenyl methane (DDM). FTIR results showed that the presence of a sm
all amount of PC promoted the amine-epoxide reactions, probably due to
the catalytic effect of the phenolic end groups in the PC chains. How
ever, the PC did not alter the epoxy cure reaction mechanism. Two diff
erent blending processes were used to premix the PC and DGEBA, namely,
solution-blending and melt-blending processes, in order to give diffe
rent extents of prereactions. If a solution-blending process was used,
PC tended to undergo crystallization during an early stage of cure. W
hen a melt-blending process was used, no melting peak was observed in
the thermograms of the differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) for the
modified epoxies; PC chains bonded to DGEBA during prereaction at 200
degrees C, thus inhibiting the crystallization of PC during cure. (C)
1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.