Investigating the Role and Scope of Catalysts in Inverse Vulcanization

Inverse vulcanization is a potential route to the use of large excesses elemental sulfur, creating high-sulfur-content polymers with many applications. The addition metal diethyldithiocarbamate catalyst was previously found bring several benefits inverse vulcanization, making process more attractive industrially. Herein reported establishment and exploration library catalysts for vulcanization. Three ranges up 32 compounds their combinations have been investigated. By trialing these alternative catalysts, tentative deductions about mechanism made. It has that stronger nucleophiles give greater rate enhancement, but tradeoff harder bases may promote hydrogen sulfide byproduct formation. Monomer binding by cation be crucial mechanistic step, it possible act as phase transfer agents between immiscible sulfur organic phases. Additionally, versatility catalytic demonstrated different comonomer families.