Converting natural rubber waste into ring-opening metathesis polymers with oligo-1, 4-cis-isoprene sidechains. Issue 14 (16th March 2018) - Abbas, Mudassar
Abstract : Cross-metathesis with acrylates is used as the key-step to recycle natural rubber waste. Abstract : A chemical recycling of natural rubber waste via a degradation/polymerisation approach is described. The vulcanized rubber waste was degraded by cross metathesis with ethyl acrylate as the key-step yielding enoate end-capped oligo- cis -isoprenes, which were subsequently converted into norbornenes via a cycloaddition reaction with cyclopentadiene. Ring-opening Metathesis Polymerisation (ROMP) then yielded main-chain unsaturated polymers bearing oligo-1, 4- cis -isoprene side chains with appealing thermal stability and a glass transition temperature of −60 °C.