Precious metal-free silicone curing

Matthias Nobis in the laboratory of the WACKER-Institute of Silicon Chemistry in Garching. Image: Andreas Heddergott / TUM Sustainable processes could replace precious metals in silicone crosslinking - Silicones are tried and tested in the private and professional domains. In many applications, however, expensive precious metals are required as catalysts to transform the liquid intermediate products to durable elastic polymers. A research team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Munich-based WACKER Group has now developed a curing process that works without precious metals. Silicones are synthetic polymers consisting of an inorganic silicon-oxygen backbone modified with organic side groups Before use, silicone must be converted to a rubber-elastic state through chemical crosslinking. One of the more important methods used in the industry is addition-curing, since this crosslinking process does not release any volatile byproducts and results in particularly high-quality silicone elastomers. The process does have one disadvantage, however: the catalysts required for crosslinking contain precious metals such as platinum, which make the manufacturing process relatively expensive.