High impact resistance epoxy resins by incorporation of quadruply hydrogen bonded supramolecular polymers

• DOI: 10.1007/s10118-016-1809-1
• Publication Date: 2016-05-20T09:44:55Z
• Authors: Zhuo-ye Chai; Zhong Xie; Peng Zhang; Xiao Ouyang; Rui Li; Shan Gao; Hao Wei; Lian-he Liu; Zhi-jun Shuai
• Keywords: Supramolecular Polymers

A bisphenol A based epoxy was incorporated with a quadruply hydrogen bonded supramolecular polymer as a toughening agent to prepare a composite epoxy resin with higher impact resistance. The supramolecular polymer comprising poly-(propylene glycol) bis(2-aminopropyl) ether chains and 2-ureido-4[1H]-pyrimidinone moieties (UPy) self-assembled into spherical domains with sizes of 300 nm to 600 nm in diameter by micro phase separation in bulk epoxy matrixes. A significant improvement of 300% in impact resistance of the supramolecular polymer incorporated epoxy resin was obtained when the content of supramolecular polymer was 10 wt%. Tensile tests showed that the mechanical properties of the modified epoxy resin containing the hydrogen-bonded supramolecular polymers are also improved compared with those of the neat epoxy resin.