Effect of Curing Time of Poly(butadiene-acrylic acid-acrylonitrile)/Tri- Epoxy Curative on the Esterification Reaction: A FT-IR Study

In this study, a Poly (butadiene-acrylic acid-acrylonitrile), PBAN, was characterized by FT-IR, DSC, TGA and GPC spectroscopies. Acid-titration was performed to determine the content of the acrylic acid. Then PBAN pre-polymer was cured at 80°C by an epoxy curing agent (LY 5052) in the presence of a curing catalyst (MgO) and FT-IR monitoring was performed at three steps of curing time (0, 6 and 12 days). During the curing process, the acrylic acid groups of PBAN were reacted with epoxy groups of curative which ester groups were yielded. The results showed that by increasing the curing time the disappearance of epoxy/acrylic acid groups is mainly occurred before 6 days (about 86%) and the esterification is largely progressed after 6 days up to 12 days (69%).