Performance Characteristics
Dicyandiamide
In the thermosetting epoxy/dicyandiamide (DICY) formulation, DICY is a hardener that provides excellent processing, outstanding electrical and mechanical features, low toxicity, and extended shelf life. Our DICY known as Dycure, is a white crystalline powder and comes in a broad selection of grades to choose from. It not only varies in particle size but also in the amount of flow control agent present. As the system (epoxy/Dycure, 1k) requires time for curing and elevated curing temperature, which is high for some applications, it is necessary to speed up the curing process and decrease the curing temperature significantly, while maintaining the shelf life of the composite. For this purpose, Dycure is utilized with a mixture of an accelerator, including substituted urea, amines, and imidazoles.
Substituted urea as a blocked accelerator facilitates the epoxy-dicyandiamide reactions, resulting in a long shelf life material, and excellent latency, and is brilliant for use in adhesive products such as film adhesives. They function effectively in the presence of solvents. Subsequent thermal activation is offered with fast curing and high cross-linking density. Under heat, it decomposes to generate active species such as dimethylamine and isocyanate groups. These active groups accelerate the epoxies curing process and also form additional linkages as a result of the reaction with epoxy groups in the network. Accordingly, substituted ureas have been used successfully for many years as Dicy accelerators. While they cannot cure epoxy resins by themselves, their synergistic performance with DICY makes them outstanding accelerator choices.
Substituted Ureas
Dihydrazides
Epoxy systems (1K) are one of the most applied thermosets in coatings industries. The curing agent employed in the crosslinking process defines not only the final properties of the thermosets but also the technological conditions of application. In Dihydrazide derivatives, the selection of different backbone chains of carbon offers higher Tg, better pot life, and a cure time of less than a minute. Accelerators, for instance, substituted urea, could help the curing process by lowering the activation temperature without any adverse impact on performance properties. Our Dycure dihydrazide hardeners are typically employed in one-component adhesives, acrylics, urethane, and hot-melt pre-pregs due to their high Tg, great toughness, and high water solubility properties.
The term “one-component” (1K) reveals that the curing agent and resin are packaged together by a group that does not react until the appropriate environmental conditions are applied. Major industry applications for one-component composite include prepregs, wind power, automotive, machinery and aerospace, encapsulation materials, powder coatings, insulation, and carbon fiber composites as structural adhesives.
Applications
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