Silane crosslinking agent

Silane crosslinking agent polyethylenes are a  commercial product for the global wire and cable market. The crosslinking takes place in the presence of trace amounts of water and the reactions can be accelerated by  incorporating a tin-based catalyst. In the first step, the methoxyl groups are hydrolysed to hydroxyl groups during. The crosslinking takes place in the second step where the hydroxyl groups recombine through a condensation step26, as shown in Figure 2. The schematic picture below shows the crosslinking mechanism for vinyltrimethoxy silane grafted onto the polyethylene backbone;  however in the case of copolymerised ethylene-vinyltrimethoxy silane, the silane trimethoxy group is coupled directly to the polyethylene backbone.