Investigation of synthesis, thermal properties and curing kinetics of fluorene diamine-based benzoxazine by using two curing kinetic methods

A novel diamine-based benzoxazine monomer containing aryl ether and bulky fluorene groups (BEF-p) was prepared from the reaction of 9,9-bis-[4-(p-aminophenoxy)-phenyl]fluorene with paraformaldehyde and phenol. The chemical structure of monomer was confirmed by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H and 13C NMR). The polymerization behavior of monomer was analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and FTIR. The curing kinetics was studied by non-isothermal DSC, and the kinetic parameters were determined. The autocatalytic model based on two kinetic methods (Starink-LSR method and direct LSR method) showed good agreement with experimental results. The thermal and mechanical properties of poly(BEF-p) were evaluated with DSC, dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results showed that the cured polymer exhibited higher glass transition temperature (Tg) and better thermal stability compared with diaminodiphenylmethane-based benzoxazine(P-ddm), and was slightly lower than those of fluorene diamine-phenol-based polybenzoxazine (poly(BF-p)).