Petroleum-based vinyl ester (VE) resins are one of the most common materials used in conventional thermosetting polymers and composites because of their improved performance and ease of processing. However, these materials contribute to the depletion of finite crude oil reserves, and the cost of manufacturing will become increasingly under the mercy of fluctuating market conditions for petroleum. As a result, there is an increased interest in finding alternate sources of feedstock, particularly from renewable sources that can reduce manufacturing costs while also meeting criteria for increasingly important sustainability initiatives.

Investigators at Drexel University in collaboration with the Army Research Laboratory have created novel vinyl ester monomers that utilize anhydrosugars such as isosorbide, isomannide, and isoiodide as the core scaffold. These monomers have been formulated to generate a number of novel resins that are partially to fully-biobased, which when free radically polymerized have properties that meet or exceed their petroleum derived counterparts.