Formaldehyde-free thermally curable polymers

A curable polymer composition comprising the following monomer constituents:

• (a) from 0.5 to 10% of a nitrogen-functional monomer where the N atom in the monomer side chain is linked to hydrogen or any other substitution groups, excluding hydroxyalkyl groups and any reaction products or condensates of aldehydes with amino- or amido-functional monomers,
• (b) from 0.5 to 10% of an oxygen-functional monomer, where the 0 atom in the monomer side chain is single-bonded to either one or two carbon atoms of that side chain,
• (c) from 0.5 to 10% of an acid-functional monomer or its salts, and
• (d) from 70% up to 98.5% of one or more other ethylenically unsaturated monomers different from any one of above (a), (b) and (c) but capable of copolymerizing with any of the functional monomers (a), (b) and (c), to build up the polymeric backbone, where all percentages are based on the total amount of monomers that constitute the final polymeric composition (w/w) and the monomers add up to 100%.