Sulfur chemistry has become popular partially due to the overabundance and low cost of elemental sulfur. It is a byproduct of petroleum refinement, and there has been a push to find ways to utilize this excess sulfur. Inverse vulcanization is a solventless technique that is widely used to produce polysulfides. However, there are also different variations of this technique, with each one having a possible impact on the final polymer structure, including molecular weight, solubility, and sulfur rank, which is the amount of sulfur atoms incorporated into the polymer. Different inverse vulcanization techniques were used to combine divinylbenzene (DVB) and elemental sulfur to prepare poly(S-DVB). Polymers were analyzed using <sup>1</sup>H NMR, GPC, ATR-IR, and DSC. The disulfide bonds within the polysulfides can be both oxidized by contact with air or oxidizing agents, as well as being reduced to thiols through the addition of reducing agents. An assessment of literature suggests that there has been no significant research done examining whether the presence of oxygen during synthesis results in oxygen being incorporated into the polysulfide itself. There is reason to suspect that there are sulfones present in polysulfide that is exposed to oxygen during synthesis. It is possible that the presence or absence of oxygen has an impact on the properties of the polysulfide, which may influence how inverse vulcanization techniques are conducted in the future. This study explores the possibility of sulfones existing in polysulfides due to exposure to oxygen during and after synthesis and its implications. Poly(S-DVB) was prepared using inverse vulcanization under nitrogen and characterized using <sup>1</sup>H NMR, GPC, ATR-IR and DSC.

Characterization of polysulfides and analysis of polysulfide oxidation during inverse vulcanization

ACS Fall 2020 Virtual Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.