Since the 1940s, bisphenol A (BPA) has been used in the plastic industry, reaching production of 10 Mt in 2022. More than 30% of the produced BPA is used in the production of epoxy resins. Decades of research has now provided enough evidence that BPA has endocrine-disrupting activity. Hence, it is an urgent matter to replace BPA in the production of epoxy resins. In the past years, considerable efforts have been put into finding alternatives to the toxic BPA. However, not only does the diglycidyl ether of BPA exhibit high polymerization reactivity, but also the presence of aromatic rings confers interesting thermomechanical resistance to epoxy networks therefrom. Hence, these properties are also expected from potential alternatives to BPA. In this review, first, the elements leading to toxicity of BPA are explained and then thorough accounts of possible bio-sourced aromatic alternatives to BPA are gathered. The reported synthetic routes for each of these alternatives and their toxicity are described. Also, their use in synthesis of epoxy resins and how the new alternatives influence the mechanical properties are discussed. This is a concise summary of the structure–property and structure–toxicity relationship for possible bio-sourced substitutes of BPA in synthesis of epoxy resins.

中文翻译：

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环氧胺热固性材料中双酚 A 二缩水甘油醚的生物来源替代品

自 1940 年代以来，双酚 A (BPA) 一直用于塑料工业，到 2022 年产量达到 10 Mt。生产的 BPA 中有 30% 以上用于生产环氧树脂。数十年的研究现已提供足够的证据表明 BPA 具有内分泌干扰活性。因此，在环氧树脂生产中替代BPA已成为当务之急。在过去的几年里，人们付出了相当大的努力来寻找有毒 BPA 的替代品。然而，不仅 BPA 的二缩水甘油醚表现出高聚合反应性，而且芳环的存在赋予环氧网络有趣的热机械阻力。因此，这些特性也有望成为 BPA 的潜在替代品。在这篇评论中，首先，解释了导致 BPA 毒性的元素，然后收集了 BPA 可能的生物来源芳香族替代品的详尽说明。描述了每种替代品的报告合成路线及其毒性。此外，还讨论了它们在环氧树脂合成中的用途以及新替代品如何影响机械性能。这是对 BPA 可能的生物来源替代品在环氧树脂合成中的结构-性质和结构-毒性关系的简要总结。