Abstract: Silane treated nano-silica was introduced into cyanate ester resin/polyphenylene oxide curing system as inorganic filler. Kinetic analysis of cyanate ester/polyphenylene oxide/nano-SiO2 was carried out using differential scanning calorimetry. It showed that the process parameters and curing kinetics parameters of cyanate ester/polyphenylene oxide/3 % nano-SiO2 curing system were obtained as follows：gel temperature 150 ℃, cuing temperature 181 ℃, post-treating temperature 239 ℃; The curing kinetic parameters were: apparent activation energy 15.46 kJ/mo1, reaction order 0.82, frequency factor 38174.38 s-1, respectively. The addition of nano-SiO2 could lower the activation energy of cyanate ester resin / polyphenylene oxide curing system and the curing reaction could occur at a relative lower temperature.

Key words: nano-silica, polyphenylene oxide, cyanate ester, curing kinetics