Dual-Curing Epoxy Thermosets: Design, Curing, Properties and Applications

Dual-curing Epoxy thermosets has found widespread use in polymer materials in recent years. Dual-curing system is one of the ways used to control the curing rate of epoxy resin to design the final product through two different curing systems with different reaction conditions. This review begins with an introduction to dual-curing systems based on epoxy and relevant reaction mechanisms. It then provides an overview of the types of dual-curing epoxy resin such as epoxy-acrylate, epoxy-amine, epoxy-thiol, epoxy-siloxane and epoxy-allyl phenol that can be encountered in these systems. Due to the variety of dual-curing models of epoxy resin, different dual-curing models and systems can be used to control the properties of the materials. The review concludes with a review of recent and successful research on dual-cured materials for shape memory polymers, adhesive materials, 3D printed materials, structured surface topologies, and holographic materials.