Epoxy resin from cardanol as partial replacement of bisphenol-A-based epoxy for coating application

With continuous depletion of petrochemical feedstock and their rising prices, the chemical industry is now looking for alternative renewable and sustainable materials. Such materials could be processed with various chemistries to produce high performance functional materials for a range of applications, such as plastics, coatings, constructions, pharmaceuticals, and food applications. Cardanol derived from cashew nut shell liquid has a reactive phenolic group and aliphatic double bond that could be exploited to produce novel functional materials for polymer and coating applications. It has previously been used for preparation of phenolics, epoxy, and phenalkamine hardeners. In this study, we report on the preparation of novel epoxy resin from cardanol via simple a two-step reaction. The prepared resin with epoxy equivalent weight of 210–220 gm/eq was analyzed using FTIR and NMR spectroscopy. The epoxy resin was then used as binder along with bisphenol-A-based epoxy resin (DGEBPA) at various weight proportions and cured with different amine hardeners. The cured coatings were analyzed for physical, mechanical, and chemical properties for optimization of the coating formulation. The study conducted showed that 40–60% of DGEBPA resulted in comparable properties to that of completely DGEBPA-based system. Further, thermal and anticorrosive properties of the optimized coatings were also evaluated.