Abstract
Vegetable oils (VO) constitute the single, largest, easily available, low cost, non-toxic, non-depletable, biodegradable family yielding materials that are capable of competing with fossil fuel derived petro-based products. The outstanding feature of VO is their unique chemical structure with to unsaturation sites, epoxies, hydroxyls, esters and other functional groups along with inherent fluidity characteristics. These enable them to undergo various chemical transformations producing low molecular weight polymeric materials with versatile applications, particularly as chief ingredients in paints and coatings. In this manuscript, we have briefly described important VO derived materials such as alkyds, polyesteramides, polyetheramides, polyurethanes, epoxies, polyols, along with their preparation and applications as protective coatings. A small portion of the review is also dedicated to the future perspectives in the field. Inspite of their extensive utilization in the world of coatings, literature survey revealed that in the past (from 1990s to date) no review has come up describing the chemistry and applications of VO polymer based coating materials.