Abstract: With the continuous deepening of the global green development concept, the community has increasingly strict requirements for the safety of the materials used. Materials that are both safe, biofriendly and environmentally friendly will become important choices in the future. Waterborne epoxy resin, which uses water as the dispersion medium, has the advantages of low volatile organic compound content, almost no pungent odor, and excellent adhesive properties and corrosion resistance, making it an effective alternative to traditional solvent-based epoxy resin. In this paper, the preparation methods of waterborne epoxy resins, particularly the preparation methods of oil-in-water (O/W) type water-based epoxy emulsions, are systematically reviewed, including the adding emulsifier method, the self-emulsification method and the curing agent emulsification method. At the same time, the waterborne epoxy curing agent system dominated by polyamines is introduced, focusing on the characteristics and research progress of three types of curing agents, amidated polyamines, polyamides, and epoxy-polyamine adducts. In addition, the application of waterborne epoxy resin in fields such as coatings, construction and petrochemicals is also introduced.