Characterization of Thermal Reversible Cross-Linking Agents for Flexible Poly(vinyl chloride)

In order to improve thermal stability of Poly (Vinyl Chloride), a kind of thermal reversible cross-linking agents, the end cyclopentadienyl ethanethiol salts, sodium cyclopentadienyl ethyl mercaptan (CPD-C2H4SNa) was synthesized in this paper. The DSC results proved that the prepared CPD-C2H4SNa has obvious thermal reversible characteristics and the thermal reversible temperature was at 177 °C. The effects of cross-linking agent amount, cross-linking reactive time and temperature on flexible PVC compounds were evaluated through gel content testing. It was showed that the cross-linking agent with 3 Phr is optimum for PVC compounds. Moreover, both the cross-linking reactive time and temperature has effects on gel content of PVC compounds. The gel content of CPD-C2H4SNa cross-linked PVC compounds reaches maximum at 76% for 20 min at 160 °C.The static thermal stability of flexible PVC was measured according to congo red method. The results showed that the thermal stability of PVC compounds was enhanced with increasing cross-linking agent amount.