Cyanate esters (CE) are an important class of materials among high temperature performance thermosets due to their high glass transition temperatures (&gt;220°C), excellent thermal stability, and low flammability. This study aims at synthesizing composites containing various hydroxy or epoxy functionalized carborane fillers to further improve the thermal stability of the CE. Carborane fillers are solvent blended at various mass loadings in the resin and cured to study their effect on thermal properties. TGA tests demonstrate that the final char content of the resin can be increased from 5% to as high as 75% for higher about 30-40% filler concentration. Cure kinetic studies have shown that, in addition to providing better thermal stability, the resin cures more quickly by addition of carborane filler. The activation energies are calculated based on the Kissinger method and phenomenological reaction models.<br/>The development of structure-property relationships will be discussed, as supported by SEM and DMA experiments. In further studies, embedding the carboranes through physical/ionic interactions with the cyanate esters might offer an interesting outlook. Borane rich carborane fillers may also equip radiation capture capabilities to the matrix. Thus, studies will be done to determine the composites’ ability to withstand radiation.

Synthesis, characterization, and cure kinetics study of carborane containing cyanate esters with excellent thermal stability

2019 Fall National Meeting

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