Funding: European Union, 7th Framework Programme (PIIF-GA-2013-626682)
Region: Europe 
Project period: 2014 – 2016
Principal Investigators: Fellow: Drs. Jintao Wan (jintao.wan@imdea.org); Supervisor: De-Yi Wang (deyi.wang@imdea.org)

Epoxy resins find versatile and massive use in wide areas such as coatings, adhesives, composite materials and electronic packaging, owing to their outstanding properties and favorable processability. However, they still suffer from high flammability. Furthermore, suppressing smoke release from burning of epoxy materials is quite challenging and far away from being well resolved.

NEW EPOXY project will try to overcome these drawbacks by developing a new generation of halogen-free high-performance epoxy nanocomposites characterized by high fire retardant efficiency and low smoke release with satisfactory mechanical and thermal properties among others. For that purpose, novel Graphene Oxide/Layered Double Hydroxide (GO/LDH) hybrids will be designed and prepared in this project as multifunctional reactive fire retardants for epoxy resins. These hybrids will then be dispersed into an epoxy/hardener matrix at a nanoscale level to yield the GO/LDH/epoxy nanocomposites. The curing reaction, reaction kinetics and rheological performance of these nanocomposites will be analised to reach a deep insight into how to optimize curing and processing conditions. Thermal properties, fire retardancy and smoke release will be also investigated in this two year long project. It is thus expected that NEW EPOXY will pave the way for the design, preparation and applications of high-performance fire retardant epoxy nanocomposites.