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Concept
Polysulfone
Summary
Polysulfones are a family of high performance thermoplastics. These polymers are known for their toughness and stability at high temperatures. Technically used polysulfones contain an aryl-SO2-aryl subunit. Due to the high cost of raw materials and processing, polysulfones are used in specialty applications and often are a superior replacement for polycarbonates.
Three polysulfones are used industrially: polysulfone (PSU), polyethersulfone (PES/PESU) and polyphenylene sulfone (PPSU). They can be used in the temperature range from -100 to +200 °C and are used for electrical equipment, in vehicle construction and medical technology. They are composed of para-linked aromatics, sulfonyl groups and ether groups and partly also alkyl groups. Polysulfones have outstanding resistance to heat and oxidation, hydrolysis resistance to aqueous and alkaline media and good electrical properties.
The term "polysulfone" is normally used for polyarylethersulfones (PAES), since only aromatic polysulfones are used commercially. Furthermore, since ether groups are always present in these polysulfones, PAESs are also referred to as polyether sulfones (PES), poly(arylene sulfone)s or simply polysulfone (PSU).
The simplest polysulfone poly(phenylene sulfone), known as early as 1960, is produced in a Friedel-Crafts reaction from benzenesulfonyl chloride:
n C6H5SO2Cl → (C6H4SO2)n + n HCl
With a melting point over 500 °C, the product is difficult to process. It exhibits attractive heat resistance, but its mechanical properties are rather poor. Polyarylether sulphones (PAES) represent a suitable alternative. Appropriate synthetic routes to PAES were developed almost simultaneously, and yet independently, from 3M Corporation, Union Carbide Corporation in the United States, and ICI's Plastics Division in the United Kingdom. The polymers found at that time are still used today, but produced by a different synthesis process.
The original synthesis of PAES involved electrophilic aromatic substitution of an diaryl ether with the bis (sulfonyl chloride) of benzene.
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