ABSTRACT:A new type of inorganic-polymer hybrid materials of epoxy/silica-titania had been prepared by incorporating grafted epoxy, which had been synthesized by epoxy and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS), with highly reactive TEOS and tetrabutyltitanate (TBT) by using the in situ solgel process. The grafted epoxy was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and 1 H-NMR spectroscopic technique. Results of FT-IR spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) demonstrated that epoxy chains have been covalently bonded to the surface of the SiO 2 -TiO 2 particles. The particles size of SiO 2 -TiO 2 are about 20 -50 nm, as characterized by AFM. The experimental results showed that the glass-transition temperatures and the modulus of the modified systems were higher than that of the unmodified system, and the impact strength was enhanced by two to three times compared with that of the neat epoxy. The morphological structure of impact fracture surface and the surface of the hybrid materials were observed by scanning electron microscopy and AFM, respectively.
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