A Review of the Synthesis Procedures for Epoxide‐Based Reactive Diluents

ABSTRACT Reactive diluents have been widely used in fiber‐reinforced plastics and the flip‐chip underfill industries to lower cost, improve handling characteristics, ease processing, and modify selected properties during manufacture. Despite their universal use to lower the viscosity of the resin formulation to improve flow and wetting, these additives' impact has not been extensively investigated other than to make note of how the networks' modulus, glass transition temperature, and failure strain may be altered. Publications by Woodcock et al. (2023) and Kotula et al. (2023) have shown that the impurities in these reactive diluents—especially those that are multi‐functional and aliphatic in character—can have a profound impact on the cure kinetics, network morphology, and mechanical properties of epoxy/amine thermosets. Therefore, this review focuses primarily on the synthesis of reactive diluents and their impurities.