1. Preparation

1.1 Summary

Vinyl esters are obtained by adding a carboxylic acid to an epoxy resin (figure 1 ).

In practice, the epoxy resins used have a macromolecular unit of two possible types:

• bisphenol A (the A in bisphenol A reminds us that it is manufactured using acetone);

• novolac (novolac, also known as phenoplast, is obtained by reacting phenol and formaldehyde in an acid medium).

This is the form in which vinyl ester resins are delivered to converters.