Studies on the Properties of a New Hybrid Materials Containing Hyperbranched Polymer and SiO2‐TiO2Networks

EP/SiO2‐TiO2 hybrid materials, which contained hyperbranched polymers (HBPs) chain‐extended urea, were prepared through a sol‐gel process of triethoxylsilyl functionalized HBPs, i.e., chain‐extended urea—H20‐Si(OC2H5), Tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and tetrabutyltitanate (TBT) using HCl as catalyst. The H20‐Si(OC2H5)3 was obtained by endcapped H20 with tolylene 2,4‐diisocyanate (TDI), followed by a reaction with 3‐aminopropyltriethoxylsilane (WD‐50). The chemical structure of the products was confirmed by IR spectroscopy. The mechanical properties of composites such as, impact strength, tensile strength, dynamic mechanical thermal properties were investigated. The results showed that the glass transition temperatures and the modulus of the modified systems were higher than that of the unmodified system, and the impact strength was enhanced by two times or that compared with the neat epoxy. The morphological structure of the impact fracture surface and the surface of the hybrid were observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively.