Processable crosslinked terpolymers made from elemental sulfur with wide range of thermal and mechanical properties

Abstract

Inverse vulcanization has emerged as a popular strategy for transforming the waste material, elemental sulfur, into functional polymers with high sulfur content (>50 wt.%, normally). Inverse vulcanized polymers are intrinsically processable and recyclable, and have been demonstrated as promising for applications in many fields. However, the mechanical properties of inverse vulcanized polymers are currently underdeveloped. If this kind of material is to be widely used in some scenarios to replace some traditional plastics, it is necessary to make them with appropriate thermal and mechanical properties that meet basic application requirements. Here, we report a series of terpolymers copolymerized from two distinct organic comonomers and elemental sulfur to obtain polymers with a wide range of glass transition temperatures (−43 °C to 45 °C) that exhibit good mechanical properties, by blending crosslinkers with varying feed monomer ratio and chain length of linear sections, which expands the application opportunities of inverse vulcanization.