Recent Developments on Biobased Curing Agents: A Review of Their Preparation and Use

The drive toward sustainable practices and principles across the supply chain has led to an upsurge in renewable materials. Epoxy resins are used in a wide range of applications in various fields, such as coatings, adhesives, castings, modeling compounds, impregnation materials, high-performance composites, insulating materials, and encapsulating and packaging materials for electronic devices. In order to achieve the desired properties, uncured epoxy resins must be converted to hard, infusible, thermoset networks in the presence of a variety of curing agents, also known as hardeners. This paper reviews recent advances in the development of curing agents from renewable materials. Attention is given to modified plant oils, biobased acids and anhydrides, amines and their derivatives, biobased phenols, rosin acids, and terpenes and lignin as biobased curing agents for primarily epoxy resin or biobased epoxy resin systems.