Cure Kinetics and Properties of High Performance Cycloaliphatic Epoxy Resins Cured with Anhydride

In this work, a cycloaliphatic epoxy resin hexahydrophthalic acid bis(3,4-epoxycyclohexylmethyl) ester (BE) was prepared and cured with anhydride. The curing kinetics and properties of the cycloaliphatic epoxy resin were characterized and compared with (3′,4′-epoxycyclohexane) methyl-3,4-epoxycyclohexyl-carboxylate (CE) and bis(3,4-epoxycyclohexylmethyl) adipate (BA). The result shows that BE/4-methyl hexahydrophthalic anhydride (MHHPA) exhibits a higher reaction activation energy and a slower curing rate than CE/MHHPA and BA/MHHPA. The loss modulus of BE/MHHPA increased 53 and 24% compared to CE/MHHPA and BA/MHHPA, respectively. The Young's modulus and initial degradation temperature of BE/MHHPA improved 31 and 6.4% compared with those of BA/MHHPA. Furthermore, superior moisture resistance and dielectric properties are expressed for BE/MHHPA among these epoxy resins. Those results demonstrated the potential usefulness of BE/MHHPA in the electronic packaging materials field.