This article describes the curing and thermal behavior of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A with phthalic anhydride (PA)/pyromellitic anhydride/diaminodiphenyl sulfone (DDS) or a mixture of anhydrides and amines in varying ratios as curing agents. The kinetics of the curing behavior was investigated with a multiple-rate method. The activation energy of the curing reaction as determined in accordance with Ozawa's method was found dependent on the structure of the anhydride and on the ratio of amines to anhydrides. The activation energy was highest with sample DP3 (0.25 : 0.75) and DM3 (0.25 : 0.75). We evaluated the thermal stability of epoxy resin, cured isothermally, by recording thermogravimetric traces in a nitrogen atmosphere. The char yield was highest for resins cured with a mixture of DDS and PA (0.5 : 0.5) and a mixture of DDS and pyromellitic dianhydride (0.25 : 0.75).

This article describes the synthesis of some novel aromatic amide-amine curing agents by reacting 1 mole of p-amino benzoic acid with 1 mole of each of 1,4-phenylene diamine (P), 1,5-diamino naphthalene (N), 4,4 0 -(9-fluorenyllidene)-dianiline (F), 3,4 0 -oxydianiline (O), and 4,4 0 -diaminodiphenyl sulphide (DS) and were designated as PA, NA, FA, OA, and SA, respectively. The aromatic amideamines so synthesized were characterized with the help of spectroscopic techniques, viz., Fourier Transform Infrared, proton nuclear magnetic resonance, and carbon nuclear magnetic resonance. The curing kinetics of the epoxy resins obtained by reacting amines with diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A blended with tris(glycidyloxy)phosphine oxide in a ratio of 3 : 2, respectively, were investigated by DSC technique using multiple heating rate method (5,10,15,20 C/ min). Activation energies were determined by fitting the experimental data into Kissinger and Flynn-Wall-Ozawa Kinetic models. The activation energies obtained through Flynn-Wall-Ozawa method were slightly higher than Kissinger method but were comparable. However, both the energies were found to be dependent on the structure of amines. The thermal stability and weight loss behavior of isothermally cured thermosets were also investigated using thermogravimetric analysis in nitrogen atmosphere.