Modern views on the chemistry of vulcanization changes. I. Nature of the reaction between sulfur and olefins

Whatever additional factors may be concerned in the production of good vulcanizates from natural rubber by the action of sulfur, there is no doubt that the action of sulfur on olefinic materials in general at the ordinary vulcanization temperature is a chemical one, the primary course of which is determined largely by the constitution of the olefin, and hence may be profitably studied by experimentation with olefins of different unsaturation patterns. Unaccelerated reaction between sulfur and simple monoolefins leads almost exclusively to cross linking of the separate olefin molecules, mostly in pairs, by groups of sulfur atoms. When, however, two or more olefinic units occur in the same molecule, as in the disoprenic hydrocarbons, intramolecular cross linking, i.e., cyclization, at once becomes possible, and the result of sulfur action consists partly in the cross linking of separate molecules as with the monoolefins, but largely in cyclization of the individual olefinic chains, thereby forming sulfur‐containing rings. These changes entail a certain loss of unsaturation, from which deductions can be made as to the mechanism of the reaction.