Polyaniline facilitated curing of phthalonitrile resin with enhanced processibility and mechanical property

Herein, we have reported that the polyaniline (PANI), as a polymeric catalyst, exhibits an outstanding efficiency for the curing of phthalonitrile resin as verified by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) with a high enthalpy, in which the triazine structure is the dominating curing products as confirmed in the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and nanoindentation tests have been carried out to investigate the thermal and mechanical properties of the cured PANI/phthalonitrile resin. The results demonstrate that the PANI/phthalonitrile resin not only manifests a high char yield up to 24.7% at temperature of 850 °C in the air atmosphere, but also possesses an improved hardness that is 81.8% higher than that of regular small molecule of amine catalyst/phthalonitrile resin.