Towards High-Performance Thermosets from Renewable Resources: Development of a Sustainable Material Platform using Epoxy-Alcohol Polyaddition

Abstract

Over the last decades, increasing industrial and scientific research focused on sustainable alternatives to replace petroleum-based epoxy resins. Furthermore, evermore social emphasis is shifted towards the environmental impact of such materials, as crosslinked polymers bear a large carbon footprint and are inherently non-recyclable or (bio)degradable. Epoxy-alcohol polyaddition represents a novel type of step-growth polymerization, which yields polymer networks with regulated and homogeneous architectures and tunable mechanical properties. By variation of the core structure and functionality of epoxy monomers, high-performance thermosets with a tunable glass transition temperature and high tensile toughness were obtained while simultaneously achieving high conversions of sustainable monomers. Additionally, high storage stability at room temperature enables to the industrial use of bio-renewable resins (e.g. coating technologies).