Abstract
This work studies reactive blends of a maleimide-containing benzoxazine (NHMI-Bz) and an amine-capped aniline trimer (ACAT) compounds. The first part is the investigation on the reaction mechanism with Fourier Transform Infrared and Differential Scanning Calorimmetry. At the initial heating stage, the quinoid crosslinking reaction of ACAT occurs first. The Michael-addition reaction between the amine groups of ACAT and maleimide groups of NHMI-Bz follows at higher temperatures. The amine groups of ACAT catalyze the ring-poening reaction of the benzoxazine groups of NHMI-Bz to generate the reaction intermediate bearing iminium moieties, which might react toward both another benzoxazine groups of NHMI-Bz and the amine groups of ACAT. Moreover, self-polymerization of the maleimide groups of NHMI-Bz and the aniline groups of ACAT results in highly crosslinked products. The fully cured NHMI-Bz-ACAT resins show good thermal stability and sufficient flame retardancy. The cured NHMI-Bz-ACAT resins have been used for anticorrosion application. The corrosion rate of the cured samples with 33wt% ACAT is much slower than the values recorded with the cured neat NHMI-Bz resin and the neat ACAT polymer. This result indicates that NHMI-Bz and ACAT could play a synergistic effect on anticorrosion, as NHMI-Bz contributes the water resistance and ACAT provides the electroactivity.