Phenolic resins: 100 Years and still going strong

After 100 years phenolic resins continue to be a prominent resin system with an impressive worldwide volume of nearly 6 million tons/year. It is a ubiquitous adhesive for a diverse spectrum of materials such as wood, glass, metal, paper and rubber with several of these applications being developed by Baekeland during the early stages of his resin commercialization. Many recent technical conferences have been held and were identified with important early Baekeland advances such as Baekeland 2007, Baekeland 2009 and the more recent Baekeland 2011 - all commemorating different initial activities of Baekeland and centennial recognition of his 1907 patent, first production of phenolic resin in Erkner, Germany in 1909 and the centennial celebration of the production of phenolic resin in Japan in 1911. This presentation provides an overview and evaluation of large volume application markets for resole and novolak resins in 2011 and comments related to anticipated greater growth of novolak resins over resole resins. Both resole and novolak resins are viewed as reactive intermediates that undergo a variety of chemical transformations into various improved and in many instances upgraded resin systems that lead to both recognizable and newly reactive resins for value added products. New areas involving phenolic resins are described and consist of Phenol Resorcinol Formaldehyde (PRF) resins, Nanomodification, Novel Novolak Process, ionic liquids, Phenolic Hybrids, and Poly Aryl Ether Amide based on novolak and phenylene bisoxazoline (PBO). (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.