2014 Volume 24 Issue 1 Pages 11-14
The structure of cured phenolic resins prepared by compression molding of a deuterated phenolic resin oligomer and nondeuterated hexamethylenetetramine as a curing agent was investigated using complementary small-angle neutron and X-ray scattering techniques. The results indicate that (i) cross-links are randomly distributed over the range 3–1600 nm and (ii) the spatial inhomogeneity of the cross-links in that range is very small and negligible in comparison with the inhomogeneity associated with the internal fractal interfaces in terms of the fluctuations of the neutron and X-ray scattering length densities.
