Michael Haubs

Poly(phenylene sulfide) – some news on an old polymerization

Abstract High performance thermoplastic poly(p-phenylene sulfide) (PPS) is commercially produced from sodium sulfide and p-dichlorobenzene: Na-S-Na + Cl-(C6H4)-Cl → -[C6H4S]- + 2 NaCl At a first glance, this looks like a classical step growth polymerization of the A-A + B-B type. There has been considerable discussion and scientific investigation about the reaction mechanism. Today, it is accepted that PPS polymerization is a step growth polymerization with chain length dependent end group reactivities. This paper suggests to add a polymer chain cleavage reaction to the known kinetic model in order to improve the fit of experimental observation and modeling results. Implications of this reaction kinetic model for the design and engineering of an optimized PPS polymerization process are discussed.