VULCANIZATION OF EPDM BY ORGANOMETALLIC COMPOUNDS CONTAINING LABILE SULFUR

Naturally occuring non hem iron protein (NHIP) is characterized by containing a few iron atoms and the same number of labile sulfur atoms. In the course of our investigation on NHIP model compounds, we noticed that mechanisms of vulcanization and acceleration of rubbers with sulfur are probably similar to the behavior of labile sulfur in NHIP. We synthesized bis (perthiobenzoato) zinc I as a chelate containing labile sulfur and bis (dithiobenzoato) zinc II as the precursor to I. When these compouns were used as vulcanizing agent and accelerator of EPDM, we found that I is both an excellent vulcanizing agent and an excellent accelerator, and II is a superior accelerator.