The preparation and physical properties of polysulfide-based elastomers through one-pot thiol-ene click reaction

In this paper, polysulfide-based elastomers were successfully prepared through a simple one-pot thiol-ene click reaction of the liquid polysulfide oligomer with bisphenol-A diacrylate resin. Real-time Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis showed that the molecular weight of the liquid polysulfide oligomer had no effect on mercaptan functional group conversion. The obtained elastomers continued to keep low temperature flexibility of polysulfide except Elastomer-LP3, which was due to higher content of bisphenol-A structure. All the samples had a tensile strength of over 0.7 MPa, which was comparable to that of polysulfide polymer cured by metal oxide. Moreover, the samples exhibited higher thermal stability than metal oxide cured polysulfide. This vulcanization methodology will provide a fast, efficient, and environmentally friendly approach (without metal oxides and plasticizers) for preparing polysulfide elastomers.