Synthesis and properties of novel epoxidized soybean oilmodified phenolic resin/montmorillonite nanocomposites

The novel epoxidized soybean oil-modified-phenolic resin/clay nanocomposites(ESO-M-PR/CN) was prepared. The coupling agent-benzyldimethylphenylammonium chloride [C6H5CH2N+(CH3)2C6H5Cl−, B2MP] was adopted to modify the interface between the organic and inorganic phases. The effect of the nanocomposite structure on its physical and chemical properties was discussed. During the synthesizing process of ESO-M-PR/CN, the phenol hydroxyl was etherified by ESO or ESO epoxy resin prepolymer to provide long ESO epoxy segments. Long ESO epoxy resin chain segments enhanced the crosslink density of ESO-MPR/CN. The thermal and mechanical properties exhibit a significant improvement. The temperature at which a weight loss of 5% occurs increases from 287.1 °C to 402.3 °C. The flexural strength increases by 25%, while the flexural modulus increases by 39%. Moreover, the properties of resin were enhanced by the effect of the inorganic nanoparticles, while the size of the nanomontmorillonites in the phenolic resin was characterized with a scanning electron microscope. The particle size of inorganic montmorillonites in the modified system is less than 100 nm.