Abstract
The refining of petroleum feedstocks has produced a surplus of the by-product elemental sulfur that is currently underused and is therefore, extremely low cost. The combination of sulfur with organic crosslinking units by inverse vulcanization polymerization, provides a route to low cost materials with a wide array of potential applications. To fully exploit the availability of elemental sulfur and to allow the product polymers to align well with the principles of green chemistry, a renewable crosslinker is desirable. Reported here is a polymer formed from inverse vulcanization, produced from industrial waste sulfur, and bio-derived garlic oil blend. This polymer has tuneable properties when blended with another industrial waste product, dicyclopentadiene. These polymers were found to have a high affinity to capture mercury, particularly for low mercury concentrations where other sorbents are often not effective. It is these low concentrations that are most industrially relevant and important for environmental and health concerns as even low concentrations of toxic mercury can have cumulative and severe consequences. Crucially, these ternary polymer systems are mechanically robust due to their increased glass transition temperatures and hardness values, making them viable for practical applications.
Published Version
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