Curing mechanism study for dual cure of epoxy adhesive by differential scanning calorimetry

Abstract

© 2016 Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland. Epoxy adhesive used in electronic packaging could normally be cured by ultraviolet light, heat at high temperature or dual cured by both processes. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) has been used to identify and analyze the occurred reaction during the curing process. The structural modification of epoxy during curing could be examined by measuring its thermal properties, and the change in molecular structure of epoxy could be observed by a relative small area of DSC peak. This provided the heat amount required for complete cure. It is found that the DSC peak area after heat cure at 90 °C increased linearly as a function of heating time while that at 120 °C decreased exponentially. For UV cure, it indicated that the curing mechanism was strongly depend on the energy from UV light. For dual cure at 90 °C, the heat curing time could be reduced from single curing process of 50 minutes to 6 minutes, while the heating time for dual cure at 120°C could be reduced from 4 minutes to 2 minutes.