Enabling Oxygen-Sulfur Exchange Reaction to Produce Semicrystalline Copolymers from Carbon Disulfide and Ethylene Oxide
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Updated: Nov 29, 2025

Synthesis of Terpolymers at Mild Temperatures Using Dynamic Sulfur Bonds in PolyS-Divinylbenzene
Published on: May 20, 2019
Jia-Liang Yang1, Ying Wang1, Xiao-Han Cao1
1MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China.
Abstract:
This work describes the first example of semicrystalline poly(thiocarbonate)s from carbon disulfide (CS2 ) and ethylene oxide (EO), two mass producible low-cost monomers. Lewis acid/base pairs (LPs) exhibit high activity (EO conversion up to >99%, 8 h) in catalyzing the copolymerization under low Lewis pair/monomer ratio of 1:1500. Oxygen-sulfur exchange reaction (O-S ER) during the copolymerization of CS2 and EO, the generation and mutual copolymerization with COS, CO2 , and episulfide, is harnessed to introduce crystallizable segments [SC(O)O and SC(S)S] in the copolymer. The type of Lewis base is found to have a great impact on the chain microstructure and the crystalline properties. The formed copolymers with melting point from 117.7 to 245.3 °C are obtained. The maximum crystallinity is estimated to be 78% based on the powder wide-angle X-ray diffraction pattern. This work provides a general method to prepare semicrystalline sulfur-containing polymers.
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