Adhesives Magazine  Less Odor and Skinning With Stabilized
Mercaptans for Curing Epoxies  January 26, 2001 Figure 1/
Polymercaptan-Epoxy Chemistry Mercaptans have been used
commercially for over 25 years to cure epoxies. Despite the
numerous epoxy hardeners on the market, the mercaptans provide
some unique properties. The main one is their ability to cure
epoxies rapidly at ambient temperature. The other key property
is that the mercaptans are less sensitive in their curing speed
to mass of material than other hardeners. Thus, they can be used
in thin-film cures. Additional factors in favor of the
polymercaptans are their low toxicity compared to other
hardeners, their light color, their excellent adhesion, and the
ability to accelerate other amines and polyamides.
Polymercaptans are used when the speed of cure is important.
Even the “fast”-cure amine systems are slow in comparison,
especially when the mass of epoxy is small and a thin film is
used. This has led to the use of the mercaptans in a wide
variety