Incorporation of Silica Nanospherical Particles into Epoxy-Amine Crosslinked Materials

Composites of silica nanospheres coated with crosslinked epoxy-amine were synthesised and examined by 29 Si-magic-angle-spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The most representative fact is that epoxy-modified nanospheres lost less weight at high temperatures. At temperatures greater than 300°C the loss of weight for epoxy-modified nanospheres was rather lower than for unmodified nanospheres. This helped them to retain their structures, as the loss of weight can have adverse effects on network defects, due to the loss of crosslinks by unit of volume.