The tough guy among photocuring resins

In the photocuring industry, epoxy acrylate is the most widely used type of photocuring resin. As a photocuring resin manufacturer, Bossin will talk about epoxy acrylate today.

Epoxy acrylate is made by esterification of epoxy resin and acrylic acid or methacrylic acid. According to the structure, it can be divided into bisphenol A epoxy acrylate, modified epoxy acrylate, phenolic epoxy acrylate, and epoxidized oil acrylate. Among them, bisphenol A epoxy acrylate is the most commonly used and has the largest usage.

Bisphenol A epoxy acrylate is made by reacting bisphenol A epoxy resin with acrylic acid or methacrylate. Its molecular structure contains benzene rings, which give the resin high hardness, strength and thermal stability. And the hydroxyl group of its side chain is conducive to improving the adhesion to the substrate and the wettability to the pigment. In general, bisphenol A epoxy acrylate has the following advantages: 1. Fast light curing speed; 2. High hardness, high gloss and high fullness of the cured film; 3. Good chemical resistance; and its raw materials are convenient to source, cheap, and simple to synthesize. It is currently widely used in UV plastic varnish, UV paper varnish, UV wood paint and other systems with low-cost requirements and large dosage. As the saying goes, no gold is pure and no man is perfect. The disadvantages of bisphenol A epoxy acrylate are poor flexibility, high brittleness and poor yellowing resistance of the cured film.

Due to the above defects of bisphenol A epoxy acrylate, epoxy acrylate is modified according to performance requirements, such as amine modification, fatty acid modification, phosphoric acid modification, anhydride modification, polyurethane modification, and even silicone modification to obtain a series of modified epoxy acrylates. Different modified raw materials are synthesized by grafting or chain extension to obtain modified epoxy acrylates with outstanding performance in certain aspects. For example, amine-modified epoxy acrylate can improve the curing rate, pigment wettability and adhesion, and has good application value in UV inks. Anhydride-modified epoxy acrylate can reduce curing shrinkage, improve the flexibility and yellowing resistance of the cured film, etc.

Novolac epoxy acrylate is made by reacting novolac epoxy resin with acrylic acid or methacrylate. Compared with bisphenol A epoxy acrylate, it contains more than two epoxy groups in its molecular structure, has a higher benzene ring density and greater rigidity, so it has high reactivity, high cross-linking density of the cured film, and excellent heat resistance and chemical resistance. It is currently mainly used in PCB solder mask inks.

Epoxidized oil acrylates mainly include epoxy soybean oil acrylate, epoxy castor oil acrylate, etc. Their main characteristics are low price, good flexibility, and especially excellent wetting and dispersibility for pigments; but their photocuring rate is slow, the cured film is soft, and the mechanical and mechanical properties are poor. Therefore, they are not used alone in photocuring formulas, but are generally used as auxiliary resins in combination with other resins with higher reaction activity.

As a manufacturer of photocurable resins, Bossin has mature commercial products in the above epoxy acrylate types, such as bisphenol A epoxy acrylate B-100, B-113, etc.; modified epoxy acrylate B-163, B-151, etc.; phenolic epoxy acrylate B-191A, B-196S; epoxy soybean oil acrylate B-106. New and old customers are welcome to inquire for sample testing.