Abstract
A series of organic-inorganic hybrids, PCL/EP/$SiO_2$, involving epoxy resin and triethoxysilane-terminated polycaprolactone elastomer (PCL-TESi) were prepared via polymerization of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) with amine curing agent KB-2 and sol-gel process of PCL-TESi. The curing reactions were started from the initially homogeneous mixture of DGEBA, KB-2 and the PCL-TESi. The organicinorganic hybrids containing up to 4.95% (wt) of $SiO_2$ were obtained and characterized by FT-IR, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetry analysis (TGA). It was experimentally shown that the swelling property in toluene, morphologies and thermal properties of the resulting hybrids were quite dependent on the contents of $SiO_2$. The crosslink network density decreases with increasing of the PCL-TESi. And in TEM, the phase separated morphology of these hybrids was found, which resulted from the coagulation of Si-O-Si networks resulting from $-Si(OC_2H_5)_3$ of PCL-TESi self-curing by hydrolytic silanol condensation, with the advancement of the curing reaction in the modified epoxy resin systems. Meanwhile, the change of the $SiO_2$ content made the morphologies changed from aggregated particles of Si-O-Si in the hybrid to nanocluster of interconnected Si-O-Si particles, then to aggregated Si-O-Si dispersing in the continuous cured epoxy phase again, and last to co-continuous interpenetrating network. The glass transition behavior of the hybrid material was cooperative motion of large chain segments, which were hindered by the inorganic Si-O-Si network. And in TG analysis, the characteristic temperature at 5% of weight loss was evidently increased from $120.5^{\circ}C$ of pure cured epoxy to $277.6^{\circ}C$ of 3.84% (wt) of $SiO_2$ modified epoxy due to the existence of Si-O-Si when PCL-TESi was added in the hybrid.