Tertiary amine-based autocatalytic transesterification epoxy vitrimer: Effect of tertiary amine structure and covalent incorporation on the properties of vitrimers

Since its first report in 2011, researches on vitrimer transesterification catalyst systems had been gradually focused on three aspects: low toxicity and low corrosion, good compatibility with resin matrix, and high catalytic performance for bond exchange reactions. However, it is difficult to obtain a catalytic system that can simultaneously meet the above three expectations. This research conducted the preparation of autocatalytic transesterification epoxy vitrimers by directly mixing small tertiary amine molecules with epoxy-anhydride systems and covalent incorporating tertiary amine structures into curing systems. And the influence of tertiary amine structures and covalent incorporation on the various properties of vitrimers was also discussed. A tertiary amine promoter composed of isofunctional group ratio reaction from di-n-hexamine and epoxy resin provided by this research overcame the problem of poor compatibility between tertiary amine and epoxy resin, introduced a highly active catalytic structure into vitrimer curing system. And the result indicated that the vitrimer prepared according to our new strategy had excellent comprehensive performance. In conclusion, a new idea of covalent incorporation was proposed to provide ideas and inspiration for the development of new tertiary amine-based autocatalytic transesterification epoxy vitrimers.