Renewable green reactive diluent for bisphenol a epoxy resin system: curing kinetics and properties

Hydrosilylation epoxidized eugenol (HSI-EP-EU) is successfully synthesized and used as a reactive diluent for epoxy/anhydride (marked as P) and epoxy/imidazole (marked as I) curing systems. The reactive bio-based diluent HSI-EP-EU has an excellent dilution effect on petroleum-based epoxy resin (E44). The curing kinetics of P + HSI-EP-EU and I + HSI-EP-EU are studied by a non-isothermal DSC method. The kinetics parameters are calculated by using the Kissinger model, Crnae model, Ozawa model and β-T (temperature-heating speed) extrapolation, respectively, to determine theoretically reasonable curing conditions. In addition, the effects of HSI-EP-EU on the antibacterial properties, thermo-mechanical properties and thermal stability of P + HSI-EP-EU and I + HSI-EP-EU systems are also studied. It is found that HSI-EP-EU possessed obvious antibacterial properties and could effectively improve the mechanical properties for the I + HSI-EP-EU.