Abstract
New reinforcing agents based on modified montmorillonite with different amines and polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes were synthesized and characterized by different techniques like FTIR Spectrometry, Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). DSC analyses show that the presence of the modified montmorillonite leads to an increase of epoxy resin reactivity due to the catalytic effect of the montmorillonite modifier which included amino groups. The glass transition temperature (Tg) for the final hybrid systems which contain modified montmorillonite with amines exhibits lower value than the epoxy systems without any reinforcing agent. The thermostability of the final hybrid systems was not influenced by the introduction of these reinforcing agents. Keywords: epoxy, layered silicate, polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes, glass transition temperature, nanocomposites