Dsc 821e

DSC analysis of each component and product was performed using a Mettler Toledo DSC 821^e (Mettler-Toledo GmbH, Greifensee, Switzerland) using STARe software (version 9.30, Mettler-Toledo GmbH, Greifensee, Switzerland). The instrument was calibrated using indium. During the tests, the heating rate was 5 °C min⁻¹, and 10 L h⁻¹ of Argon gas was used as the purge gas. In our studies for different purposes, we used several temperature ranges (25–140 °C; 25–110 °C, followed by recooling and reheating to 140 °C). The weight of our test samples ranged from 2 to 5 mg in each case. Assays were performed using a 40 μL covered aluminium sample holder with 3 holes.

The thermal analysis was performed by using Mettler Toledo DSC 821e (Mettler Inc., Schwerzenbach, Switzerland). About 3–5 mg of powder was placed into DSC sample pans, which were hermetically sealed but lid pierced. An empty pan was used as a reference in an inert atmosphere under constant argon purge. The samples were examined in the temperature interval of 25–300 °C at a heating rate of 5 °C min^–1.

The cure kinetics of the prepared samples was monitored by DSC in non-isothermal scans at 2, 5, 10, 15 and 20 °C/min and isothermal scans at the temperatures of 50 °C, 70 °C, 80 °C and 90 °C. The equipment used was a Mettler-Toledo DSC 821e differential scanning calorimeter (Mettler Toledo AG, Analytical, Schwerzenbach, Switzerland) equipped with a sample robot and Haake EK90/MT intracooler (Thermo Electron GmbH, Karlsruhe, Germany). Additional isothermal scans at the temperature of 50 °C were made using a stochastic temperature modulated DSC technique, TOPEM (Mettler-Toledo DSC 823e, Schwerzenbach, Switzerland), in order to determine the vitrificationtime [39 ,40 ]. All DSC curing experiments were performed with a dry nitrogen gas flow of 50 mL/min, and the DSC was calibrated for both heat flow and temperature using indium. The data evaluation was performed with the STAR^e software (Mettler Toledo AG, Schwerzenbach, Switzerland). For all the experiments, a small sample, of about 8–10 mg for standard DSC and about 20 mg for TOPEM, was weighed into an aluminum pan, sealed and immediately inserted into the DSC furnace, which was previously heated either to the start temperature for non-isothermal scans or to the curing temperature for isothermal experiments, whereupon the curing experiment was immediately started.