Polymer Bulletin, Vol.78, No.4, 1925-1940, 2021
Curing and thermal properties of tannin-based epoxy and its blends with commercial epoxy resin
In order to find partial substitution for bisphenol A-based commercial epoxy resin (CE), a bio-based epoxy resin was prepared from eucalyptus tannins through a typical glycidylation reaction with epichlorohydrin. The structure of tannin-based epoxy resin (TE) was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. Herein, mixtures of TE and CE (TE-CE) were prepared using varying loading amounts (20, 40 and 60) wt/wt%of TE. Tannins used here are produced by solid-liquid extraction from the outer bark of eucalyptus tree, mainly consisting of condensed tannins. Through the use of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and FTIR techniques, the reactivity of tannin epoxy with and without commercial epoxy resin to form cross-linking network was investigated. TE was successfully cured with amine-based curing agent. Furthermore, compared to commercial epoxy resin (CE), TE exhibited broad low exothermic peak, insignificant cross-linking properties and low curing enthalpy at different levels of curing agent. Moreover, to study the influence of TE substitution on the curing properties of CE, curing behavior of TE-CE mixtures was investigated by DSC. It was found that TE at high loading levels such as 40 and 60 wt/wt% increases slightly the reactivity of CE by decreasing curing characteristics temperatures such as the initial of curing, peak exotherm and completion of curing temperatures. TE can serve as curing accelerator and has a non-desirable impact on the curing performance of CE resin such as curing enthalpy. And up to 20 wt/wt% of CE could be replaced by TE without any significant reduction in the curing behavior of CE.