Grant: Engage Grants Program

CSL Silicones, Inc. (CSL) has been a global leader in silicone manufacturing for close to 30 years. Its ongoinginvestments in both developmental and applied research at its Materials Research and Applications TechnologyCentre ensure the business continues to reinvent itself through product and technology development efforts.CSL crafts its own unique silicone polymers, employing advanced equipment for creating reactive silicones,which feed into the development and production of novel silicone formulations to serve increasinglydemanding client needs for application solutions.CSL Silicones has approached Brock University to study the chemical reactivity of different cyclosiloxanes,their commercially available mixtures, and residual cyclosiloxanes that are recovered from the ring openingpolymerization (ROP) reactions designed to produce linear organosiloxane polymers. The following questionswill be addressed by this project: (1) How do the ROP reactions begin and how do they proceed? (2) What isthe rate of monomer consumption during the reaction? (3) What compounds are present in the reaction mixtureat equilibrium? (4) How does the presence of linear siloxanes at the onset of the reaction affect the progressionof the reaction and the composition of the final reaction mixture?Data from the shorter- and longer-term projects will lead to improvements in the yield of siloxane product(s) byoptimizing the amount of initiator used and the reaction conditions, ultimately permitting CSL Silicones toeconomize the polymer production process. By gaining insights into the polymer reaction itself CSL Siliconeswill be able to achieve better control over the viscosity of the siloxane as well as the recycling of any materialsthat can be isolated/removed during the polymerization process.