Abstract
Poly-p-vinyl phenol is a new material developed recently by Maruzen Oil Co., Ltd. Chemical structure of poly-p-vinyl phenol is shown in Fig. 1 and its properties in Table 1. One of the applications of poly-p-vinyl phenol is thermosetting resin, which cures with such as epoxy resin or hexamine. Thermal properties of clear castings of poly-p-vinyl phenol and epi-bis-type epoxy resin system were examined by way of heat distortion temperature and glass transition temperature. The results are shown in Table 2, Figs. 5 and 7. From the results, the formulation recommended is
(1) poly-p-vinyl phenol/epoxide molar ratio =1. 0
(2) Mw of poly-p-vinyl phenol>3,000
(3) imidazole or its derivatives to be used as the curing ca talyst.
Physical properties of the cured resin obtained by this formula are shown in Table 3. Epoxy-cured poly-p-vinyl phenol showed attractive thermal stability compared with conventional epoxies, such that at temperatures higher than glass transition temperature the increase of thermal expansion and the decrease of rigidity are small (Figs. 2 and 3).
