3.1. Non-Isothermal DSC Analysis of NPF/HMTA and BNPF/HMTA Resins
Isothermal and non-isothermal DSC measurements were performed to measure the heat of the reaction and investigate the curing process of NPF/HMTA and BNPF/HMTA resins and understand the curing behavior of developed NPF/HMTA and BNPF/HMTA resins. The isothermal approach yielded higher testing errors, similar to those previously reported for other systems [
45]. Therefore, the non-isothermal DSC technique was adopted.
The non-isothermal DSC thermograms of the NPF/HMTA and BNPF/HMTA resins with different heating rates of 5, 10, 15, and 25 °C/min are shown in
Figure 2a and
Figure 2b, respectively. Each of these thermograms displays the exothermic peaks associated with the cross-linking reactions of the NPF/HMTA and BNPF/HMTA resins, and the peak temperature (Tp) inferred from these exothermic peaks is summarized in
Table 1. All the curing exothermic peaks and characteristic peak temperatures shifted to higher temperatures with the increasing heating rates (ꞵ = 5-20 °C/min). The increments mentioned before can be attributed to the following: as more heat is released with an increased heating rate, the temperature gradient between the reaction center and the external environment due to thermal inertia increases [
35,
45,
46]. The exothermic peak temperature is believed to shift to a higher temperature zone for compensation [
47]. The DSC curves of BNPF/HMTA resin show two distinct exothermic peaks. The first broad exotherm is ascribed to the curing reaction, and the small exotherm at higher temperatures can be attributed to side reactions occurring during the heating process. One possible explanation for the side reactions is that other chemical groups may interact with the HMTA intermediates. Still, the exotherm is very small and was neglected in the present study. Hence, only the exotherm's first curing peak was considered for kinetic analysis.
3.2. Model-Fitting Method
The goal in the model-fitting kinetic analysis of NPF/HMTA and BNPF/HMTA resins was to find the four kinetic parameters (A, E, n, m), described in equations 7, 8, and 9 associated with the curing system according to a suitable reaction model. To examine the kinetic model, activation energy (E) is calculated by inserting (β = dT/dt) in Eq (6) and taking the logarithmic form of it (as reported in Eq. (10)), through the relation of the peak temperature (Tp) dependency on the heating rate (ꞵ). Assuming an isofractional peak temperature (Tp = Constant), activation energy E is determined by a linear regression analysis of ln(βdα/dTp) against 1/Tp across various heating rates (5, 10, 15 and 25 K/min) as reported in Eq (10) and shown in
Figure 3.
Using the activation energy and according to the choice of the appropriate kinetic model, the reaction order (n or m) and the frequency factor (A) are calculated.
For nth-order model, by taking the logarithmic form of Eq (7), which is reported in the theory section, and expressing it in Eq (11)
By applying the linear regression method to Eq (11), the values of n and A are obtained through the slope and intercept (ln A), respectively.
For the autocatalytic model, by taking the logarithmic form of Eq (8), which is reported in the theory section, and expressing it in Eq (12)
A multilinear regression method is applied to Eq (12) for determining the values of A, n, and m. Here, for autocatalytic model, the overall order of reactions (m + n) is determined either with constraint (m + n = 2) or without constraint (m + n = 2).
Whereas, in the case of the Kamal model, a nonlinear regression method is used to estimate the kinetic parameters and reaction orders (n and m). In addition, for Kamal model, different condition were applied to investigate the kinetic constants k1 and k2 (E1 = E2 & m + n = 2, E1 = E2 & m + n ≠ 2, E1 ≠ E2 & m + n = 2 and E1 ≠ E2 & m + n ≠ 2). MATLAB R2022a software (version 9.0) is used to evaluate these parameters.
Once the kinetic parameters are determined at each heating rate for the nth-order model (E, A, and n), autocatalytic model (E, A, m and n), and Kamal model (E
1, E
2, A
1, A
2, m, and n), respectively, the next step is to fit the experimental data using the model and kinetic parameters to obtain the degree of curing (α) and reaction rate (dα/dt) at each temperature. Curing kinetic model results by fitting models are shown in
Table 2.
It can be observed that the extent of conversion (α) plots for both NPF/HMTA and BNPF/HMTA depicted in
Figure 4 and
Figure 6 shows the sigmoid profile, i.e., the slow increase in α at the beginning and end of the curing process, while the quick increment at the intermediate stage. Whereas increasing heating rates leads to shifting these conversions (α) curves to higher temperature zones, this behavior shows good agreement with other studies [
45].
According to the model fitting results for NPF/HMTA resin, the autocatalytic model shows a suitable fit for the experimental results, as shown in
Figure 4 and
Figure 5. This is because the autocatalytic curing mechanism controls the entire curing reaction of NPF/HMTA resin, as the intermediate products generated during the curing process catalyze the reaction with the higher order of reaction (n), and the reaction rate reaches the maximum at the middle of the reaction stage. Smaller reaction order is observed (m), where the reaction's curing rate decreases. Our results are in accordance with the published works [
43,
48,
49].
As depicted in
Figure 6 and
Figure 7, the Kamal model shows superior predictability for monitoring the curing mechanism of the BNPF/HMTA resin, as the kinetic model shows good agreement with the experimental data. The Kamal model is a combination of the nth-order and autocatalytic models. The initial stage of the curing process, where the curing agent decomposes to produce intermediated that reacts with the novolac resin, is controlled by the autocatalytic reactions in later stages. The nth-order reaction mechanism controls it because the reaction rate decreases due to less availability of the free phenol and phenolic hydroxyl groups.
Figure 4.
Plot for conversion (α) as a function of temperature for the experimental and simulation results for NPF/HMTA resin at different heating rates.
Figure 4.
Plot for conversion (α) as a function of temperature for the experimental and simulation results for NPF/HMTA resin at different heating rates.
Figure 5.
Plot for reaction rate () as a function of temperature for the experimental and simulation results for NPF/HMTA resin at different heating rates.
Figure 5.
Plot for reaction rate () as a function of temperature for the experimental and simulation results for NPF/HMTA resin at different heating rates.
Figure 6.
Plot for conversion (α) as a function of temperature for the experimental and simulation results for BNPF/HMTA resin at different heating rates.
Figure 6.
Plot for conversion (α) as a function of temperature for the experimental and simulation results for BNPF/HMTA resin at different heating rates.
Figure 7.
Plot for reaction rate () as a function of temperature for the experimental and simulation results for BNPF/HMTA resin at different heating rates.
Figure 7.
Plot for reaction rate () as a function of temperature for the experimental and simulation results for BNPF/HMTA resin at different heating rates.