Structure-property relationship of Vinyl Ester Resins causing reduced VOC emission

The use of polymer composites is expected to increase 100-fold over the next two decades because of their high properties, low weight, and low cost. The increasing demand for low-cost composites is accompanied by the need of low-cost processing methods, such as liquid molding, that require low resin viscosity systems. Unfortunately, these systems contain VOC, e.g., styrene, that are damaging to the environment. One method of reducing styrene emission from vinyl ester (VE) resins is to replace styrene with fatty acid-based monomers. The viscosity and thermo-mechanical properties as well as the cure rate of these binary blends are affected considerably by the nature of the fatty acids like chain length and level of unsaturation. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 228th ACS National Meeting (Philadelphia, PA 8/22-26/2004).