The intractable after-treatment problem of thermosetting epoxy resins due to the insolubility and infusibility brings about an ever-increasing pressure on environment. In this work, new degradable silicon-containing cycloaliphatic diepoxide (a-terpineol) as a major material. After curing with anhydride, large amounts of heat-labile tertiary carbon ester and tertiary C-O ether linkages in the network made the crosslinked Epo-Si degrade at a lower temperature of 269 degrees C. Moreover, its degradation temperatures could be readily tuned through co-curing with the commercial diepoxide ERL-4221. At room temperature, the shearing strength of the cured Epo-Si is 6.74 MPa, superior to that of ERL-4221 (5.24 MPa), exhibiting excellent adhesion property. More importantly, the cured Epo-Si maintains the high shearing strength up to 240 degrees C, but when further increasing temperature, the strength rapidly dropped and almost completely lost at around 285 degrees C. Therefore, if integrated circuits have been encapsulated with Epo-Si, their dismantlement or repair at a suitably lower temperature could be realized without damaging the PCB board. The thermal decrosslinking mechanism of the cured products were investigated by means of isothermal and temperature-programmed thermogravimetric and FTIR spectra in detail. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.