Bio-sourced monomers and cationic photopolymerization–The green combination towards eco-friendly and non-toxic materials

Cationic photopolymerization is amongst the greenest processes used to obtain polymers since light is abundant, inexpensive and allows for rapid and waste-less curing at room temperature. Moreover, in the current search for the reduction of the environmental impacts of polymers, the use of biobased monomers is one of the most crucial stakes. At the crossroads of these domains, biobased monomers photopolymerization offers the best of both. Hence, this review aims at underlying the increasing importance of cationic photopolymerization in combination with bio-based photopolymerizable monomers, and describes the numerous reactive species derived from bioresources that can lead to innovative materials through cationic photopolymerization reactions. This review intends to be a guide to orientate academic teams and industries involved in reducing both environmental impacts and toxicity towards the synthesis of environmentally safe materials. The recent advances on the photochemical systems used, the toxicity of the cationic photoinitiating systems, the reactivity of the new epoxy bio-sourced monomers, their thermomechanical properties as well as the applications of the targeted materials will be described.