Effects of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotube Content on Thermal Degradation of Epoxy Resin

M. CORCUERA; S. GOYANES; A. JIMENO; G.H. RUBIOLO; A. SALAZAR; M. ESCOBAR; I. MONDRAGÓN

San Sebastián, España.

Congreso; Modification, degradation and Stabilization, MoDeST 2006; 2006

Epoxy resin – carbon nanotubes composites have recently attracted great interest due to its potential application in different fields of the industry, such as electronic, aeronautics or automotive. Recently Puglia et al [1] reported a faster thermal degradation for diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A(DGEBA)/single-walled carbon nanotubes composites than for DGEBA systems at high filler content (5 and 10 wt %). The aim of this work was to investigate the effects of the incorporation of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) on the thermal degradation of a (DGEBA) epoxy resin at low concentrations. The epoxy prepolymer and the curing agent used for preparation of the nanocomposites were diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A (DGEBA LY 556) and isophorone-diamine (IPDA HY 2962), both from Ciba Geigy. Purified multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs-3100) from Nanocyl were employed. The following weight percentages of MWNTs were analyzed f = 0, 0.03, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.5 and 1 wt %. Previously to nanocomposites fabrication the MWNTs were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) in an N2 atmosphere, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and Infra-red (IR) and ultra-violet (UV) spectroscopy. The composites were characterized by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), TGA, IR spectroscopy and optical transmittance. The differential thermogravimetric curves (DTG) show that the DGEBA-MWNT composites exhibit a higher thermal stability than the DGEBA when the filler content is lower than 0.4 wt % while an opposite behavior is observed when the MWNT concentration increase over that value. However, no relevant effects of the presence of MWNTs are observed on the DSC and IR experiments. On the other hand, the measured optical absorbance coefficient shows a linear relationship with the MWNT concentration up to 0.4 wt % according to the Bourguer-Lambert-Beer law for dilute solutions. The loss of the linear behavior could be attributed to the agglomeration of the nanotubes. Our findings suggest that the incorporation of a well dispersed amount of MWNTs to a DGEBA resin can improve its thermal stability.     REFERENCIAS  [1] D. Puglia, L. Valentini, I. Armentano, J.M. Kenny, Diamond and Related Materials, 2003, 12 827–832