Eugenol, a developing asset in biobased epoxy resins

Abstract The synthesis of polymers from renewable resources is largely investigated in a context of sustainable development. Polyepoxide networks, widely used in many applications, constitute a major class of thermosetting polymers synthesized from bisphenol A (BPA), a substance identified as chemical estrogen. Moreover, epichlorohydrin used to graft a glycidyl ether group onto BPA to yield diglycidyl ether of BPA (DGEBA) is very toxic. This review proposes to demonstrate that eugenol represents an asset in the development of sustainable epoxy thermosets, by giving a general approach of the researches on the use of eugenol and its isomers for the synthesis of epoxidized precursors. The syntheses of precursors with hetero atoms (nitrogen, phosphorus or silicon) used in specific applications in electrochemistry or as flame-retardants is compared to DGEBA materials.