Curing reaction kinetics of epoxy resin using dicyandiamide modified by aromatic amines

The curing reaction and reaction mechanism of epoxy resin E-44, for which aromatic amine modified dicyandiamide was used as a curing reagent, were investigated by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results showed that the modified dicyandiamide had better curing characteristic than unmodified dicyandiamide for epoxy resin E-44, and the curing reaction could be carried out at moderate temperature. Apparent activation energy of the curing reaction was decreased appreciably from 123.829 kJ/mol to 61.550-64.405 kJ/mol, and reaction order was decreased from 0.941 to 0.896–0.900. Curing reaction mechanism also was discussed.