No abstract

Rational designing a novel curing agent with high-stability and long storage time is highly attractive but remains a critical challenge. Herein, a novel curing agent (2MI-ZIF-8) is constructed by the Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework-8 (ZIF-8) and 2methylimidazole (2MI). 2MI-ZIF-8 is utilized as a functional nanofiller and curing agent to prepare the 2MI-ZIF-8/EP nanocomposites. The chemical structures of 2MI-ZIF-8/EP were investigated by SEM, XRD, DSC and TG characterizations. The SEM images show that the ZIF-8 particle is individually dispersed in the EP matrix. The DSC results confirm that the curing temperature of the 2MI-ZIF-8/EP is higher than that of 2MI/EP. In addition, the kinetic parameters and the activation energy of the curing reaction were acquired according to the fitting of Kissinger equation and Ozawa equation. This study opens new avenues for the rational design of EP nanocomposites by employing MOFs-based materials as curing agent for wide engineering applications.