Reinforcement of Stearic Acid Treated Egg Shell Particles in Epoxy Thermosets: Structural, Thermal, and Mechanical Characterization

This work reports the modification of egg shell (ES) particles by using stearic acid (SA) and their reinforcement in the epoxy matrix. The ES treatment via SA was optimized, the optimum conditions for concentration, temperature, and time were found to be 2.5%, 85 °C, and 50 min, respectively. The untreated ES (UES) and treated ES (TES) particles were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), particle size distribution, and contact angle. FTIR confirmed the chemical modification of SA on ES surface and DSC reflects an endothermic peak at 240 °C. XRD reveal a decrease in crystal size and crystallinity, while contact angle increases to 169° from 42°. The SEM observations clearly reflect a distinct decrease and separation of small domains of ES particles thus improving an increased surface area. Afterwards, the UES and TES particles were reinforced in epoxy at 15 and 20 weight (wt.) % loading. The tensile tests confirmed a 22% increase in elongation as compared to pure epoxy due to the hydrogen bonding between TES particles and matrix. The lowest brittleness was recorded for TES/epoxy composites on 20 wt % loading. The TGA confirmed the improved thermal stabilities at 20 wt % loading of TES particles in matrix, the improvements in T(5%), T(10%), and T(20%) values were recorded as 33, 26, and 21 °C higher than the corresponding values for neat matrix. The TES/epoxy composites on 20 wt % showed 41% increase in storage modulus as compared to the pristine epoxy, and cross-link density reaches to 2.71 × 10(−3) from 1.29 × 10(−3) mol/cm(3) for neat matrix. The decline in tan δ height and improvement in T(g) were also observed. The best adhesion effectiveness was recorded for TES/epoxy composites. This simple and economical modification technique can enhance the application of ES particles in various polymeric coating and composites applications.