Production of thiopolymers by reactive extrusion

Abstract

This process for synthesizing thiopolymers involves feeding elemental sulfur or sulfides and unsaturated hydrocarbons into an extruder. The extruder is comprised of a screw and a barrel. The screw is rotated so as to pressurize, heat and mix the sulfur or sulfides and unsaturated hydrocarbon to induce inverse vulcanization thereby producing thiopolymers such as polymeric polysulfides. The invented process can be accomplished by using sulfur which becomes molten at the conditions in the extruder or is preheated and unsaturated hydrocarbons as the starting material. The materials are fed through one or more extruders so as to induce mixing and reaction of the materials forming polysulfides.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.