Novel flame retardant thermoset resin blends derived from a free-radically cured vinylbenzylated phenolic novolac and an unsaturated polyester for marine composites

A phenolic novolac resin has been chemically reacted with 4-vinylbenzyl chloride to introduce polymerizable vinyl benzyl groups. The modified novolac spontaneously polymerizes like styrene, is physically and chemically compatible with a typical unsaturated polyester (UP) resin, and can be free-radically cured (crosslinked) alone and in mixtures with UP using styrene as a reactive diluent. The cured vinylbenzylated novolac and co-cured blends of it with UP show superior flame retardance to cured UP alone and have potential applications as matrix resins in glass-reinforced composite laminates especially for marine structures. Publisher statement: NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Polymer Degradation and Stability. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Polymer Degradation and Stability, [127, (2016)] DOI: 10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2016.01.005 © 2015, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/