ALKALINE ENVIRONMENT EFFECT ON EPOXY-ANHYDRIDE WATER AGING

CAPIEL, GUILLERMINA; UICICH, JULIETA; ARROSIO, FLORENCIA; FASCE, DIANA; MORÁN, JUAN; MONTEMARTINI, PABLO E.

Bahia Blanca

Simposio; Simposio Argentino de Polímeros 2021; 2021

Plapiqui

Epoxy-based composites pipes are widely used in the oil and natural gas industry. During their installation, maintenance, and service life these pipes might be exposed to destructive environmental conditions. Also, the fluid composition, pH, and temperature can reach some critical values diminishing pipeline reliability and eventually generating catastrophic failure long before the expected service life.Water absorption of an epoxy-anhydride matrix presents the characteristic behavior of epoxy polymers containing hydrolysable groups in their structure and suffers hydrolytic degradation when it is exposed to water at high temperatures and/or certain pH conditions [1], [2]. In a previous work [3], the degradation of epoxy-anhydride system immersed in distilled water at 22 °C, 65 °C, 80 °C, and 93 °C was studied. This degradation process has been explained as a four-step process; which is mainly characterized by diffusion, low rate and high rate hydrolytic degradation, and mass loss.This work aims to study the influence of an alkaline environment in the absorption behavior of an epoxy-anhydride matrix.