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ABSTRACT:The commercial epoxy prepreg SPX 8800, containing diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A, dicyanodiamide, diuron, and reinforcing glass fibers, was isothermally cured at different temperatures from 75 to 110°C and monitored via in situ near-infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy. Two cure conditions were investigated: curing the epoxy prepreg directly (condition 1) and curing the epoxy prepreg between two glass plates (condition 2). Under both curing conditions, the epoxy group could not reach 100% conversion with curing at low temperatures (75-80°C) for 24 h. A comparison of the changes in the epoxy, primary amine, and hydroxyl groups during the curing showed that the samples cured under condition 2 had lower initial epoxy conversion rates than those cured under condition 1 and that more primary amine-epoxy addition occurred under condition 2. In addition, the activation energy under cure condition 2 (104 -97 kJ/mol) was higher than that under condition 1 (93-86 kJ/mol), but a lower glass-transition temperature of the cured samples was observed via differential scanning calorimetry. The moisture in the prepreg was assumed to account for the different reaction kinetics observed and to have led to different reaction mechanisms.

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The objective of the present study was to examine if near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) could be used to predict degradation parameters and effective degradation from scans of original forage samples. Degradability of dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF) of 61 samples of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) and orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) was tested by using the in situ technique. The grass samples were harvested at three different stages, early vegetative growth, early reproductive growth and late reproductive growth. Degradability was described in terms of immediately rumen soluble fraction (a fraction, for DM and CP only as NDF does not contain a soluble fraction), the degradable but not soluble faction (b fraction) and the rate of degradation of the b fraction (c value). Overall effective degradability of DM, CP and NDF was also calculated. Near infrared reflectance spectroscopy was examined for its ability to predict degradation parameters and to make a direct prediction of effective degradation from scans of the original samples of perennial ryegrass and orchardgrass. Prediction of effective degradation of the different feed fractions showed different accuracy. The coefficients of determination (R(2)) from regressions of predicted vs. measured effective degradation, using a cross-validation method, were 0.92 for DM, 0.78 for CP and 0.61 for NDF. The attempt to predict the degradation parameters (a, b and c) by NIRS was less successful as the coefficients of determination for the degradation parameters were low. Concentrations of CP and NDF in the original samples were predicted by using NIRS and the validated R(2) value was 0.98 for CP and 0.92 for NDF. It is concluded that using NIRS predictions from scans of original samples is a promising method to obtain values for the effective degradation of DM, CP and NDF in ruminant feeds, but that larger calibration sets are necessary for obtaining improved accuracy.

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