Promising Chalcogenide Hybrid Copolymers for Sustainable Applications as Bio-lubricants and Metal Adsorbents

Inverse vulcanization has emerged as a reaction to achieve hybrid inorganic-organic polymeric materials, which allows us to use the high amount of sulfur produced during refining crude oil as a raw material. In this study, a gamut of copolymers has been formulated using a quantitative atom economy, that is, elemental sulfur and castor oil (CO), as can be seen from the appearance of gels to crystalline copolymers. The physical and chemical characterization has been carried out using techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, NMR, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermogravimetric analysis. Furthermore, two types of copolymers have been selected to test their capabilities in different applications. Copolymers with S ratios higher than 30% have been tested for water remediation, with high removal rates for metals such as lead and cadmium. Although copolymers with a percentage of up to 10% sulfur have been tested as bio-based lubricants, showing improvements in terms of viscosities compared to the initial vegetable oil.