Epoxy resin filled with high volume content nano-SiO2 particles.

Mechanical and thermal properties of SiO2/epoxy nanocomposites with almost uniformly dispersed nanoparticles were thoroughly investigated in this study. Young's modulus, tensile strength and fracture toughness of epoxy resin were simultaneously improved with SiO2 nanoparticles up to 14 vol.%. Atomic force microscopy was carried out in order to detect the nanoparticle-matrix interphase. It was found that the interphase region became harder than the bulk matrix, due to the higher crosslink density in the interphase region. Differential scanning calorimetry was applied to investigate the curing behaviors of nano-SiO2/epoxy composites. The presence of nano-SiO2 had little effects on the curing reaction. In addition, the glass transition temperature of epoxy resin dropped slightly with the increased nano-SiO2 content.