Inverse vulcanization involves reactions between elemental sulfur and unsaturated organic compounds to result in polysulfide materials. In this work, a Meldrum's acid-containing styrene compound (MA-St) has been employed in the inverse vulcanization process for introduction of MA moieties to the corresponding polysulfide material (poly(S-MA-St)). Poly(S-MA-St) possesses self-cross-linking ability based on the sequential MA thermolysis and ketene (generated with MA thermolysis) dimerization reactions. With employing CO 2 , evolved with MA thermolysis reaction, as a foaming agent, poly(S-MA-St) also exhibits self-foaming feature in the thermally cross-linking process. Moreover, cross-linked poly(S-MA-St) material shows repairable property based on the dynamic polysulfide chains. As a result, poly(S-MA-St) is an effective agent for imparting repairable property to other polymers. On the other hand, cross-linked and foamed poly(S-MA-St), which possesses polysulfide chains and rich oxygen atoms and porous structure, has demonstrated a mercury absorption capacity of 52.0 ± 1.8 mg Hg/g sample. While a 100 mg sample being applied to 10 mL HgCl 2 aqueous solution of a concentration of 2240 ppb in 3 h, a high mercury removal efficiency of 96% has been recorded. This work has demonstrated a new class of functional polysulfide materials on the viewpoints of both synthetic chemistry and application targets.

Inverse vulcanization utilizes an organic compound as reagent for crosslinking elemental sulfur to result in corresponding polymeric material with a high sulfur content. This work, employing 1,3,5-triisopropylbenzene (TIPB) as the reagent, demonstrates the first attempt on extending the scope of crosslinking agents of inverse vulcanization to saturate compounds. Under nuclear magnetic spectroscopic analysis, the reactions between TIPB and elemental sulfur take places through ring-opening reaction of S 8 resulting in sulfur radicals at sulfur chain ends, radicals transferring to isopropyl groups of TIPB, and radical coupling reactions between carbon radicals and sulfur radicals. The obtained products are similar to the sulfur polymers from conventional inverse vulcanization processes and show self-healing property.