Thermoformable and recyclable CFRP pultruded profile manufactured from an epoxy vitrimer

Abstract

In the present work a recyclable and reprocessable vitrimer suitable for pultrusion process has been formulated and a pultruded profile reshaped by thermoforming has been manufactured therefrom. A DGEBA epoxy resin with medium range viscosity and a bis(a-aminophenyl disulfide) as dynamic crosslinker were used for the synthesis of the vitrimer. The thermal stability was studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and curing behaviour and curing kinetics were studied by means of dynamic scanning calorimeter (DSC) and rheology measurements. Mechanical properties of the dynamic resins and its counterpart epoxy resin and of the fabricated carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRP) were determined. The dynamic resin showed a fast stress relaxation at temperatures above 150 °C. Finally, as a proof of concept, mechanical recyclability and the thermoforming of the vitrimer-based pultruded profile have been validated.

Keywords

• Epoxy vitrimers
• Pultrusion
• Reprocessable
• Recyclable
• Thermoforming