Numerous studies have manifested the concern of heat and mass transfer loss for sulfur copolymers generation via inverse vulcanization. To overcome the mass and energy losses, sulfur-acrylic copolymers synthesized via emulsion polymerization. An outlook for the preparation of sulfur-acrylic emulsion at high temperature in an aqueous medium was provided. Conducted indagating aims to provide a method for the preparation of elemental sulfur copolymers via emulsion polymerization. Acrylic monomers (acrylic acid, butyl methacrylate, methyl methacrylate) and styrene evolved with elemental sulfur to generate the crosslinked structure polymer in the presence of surfactants and initiator. Emulsion polymerization technique help to control the reaction kinetics and enhance the yield. The monomeric compounds are polymerized in the presence of emulsifiers Sodium dodecyl sulfate and Triton X-114 to form stabilized micelles using Potassium persulfate (KPS) polymerization initiator. Formation of sulfur-acrylic-emulsion (SAE) polymer is confirmed by XRD, FTIR, SEM, TEM, DSC, and TGA. Prepared emulsion polymers can be easily processed into thin film at room temperature. XRD and DSC results confirm that crystalline sulfur is completely converted to amorphous form of polymer, and FTIR indicate the reaction completion and presence of C-S bonds. TGA results validate the thermal properties strapped with increasing crosslinking density. SEM and TEM images used to analyze the surface morphology of sulfur co-polymer which present the core-shell structure as shown in the Figure. The prepared polymer exhibits the potential properties to utilize as cathode material for lithium sulfur batteries as well as for water treatment applications.

Sulphur copolymer via emulsion polymerization: Synthesis, characterization, and application perspective

ACS Spring 2022

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