Thiourea

Thiourea is an organosulfur compound with the formula SC(NH₂)₂. It is structurally similar to urea, except that the oxygen atom is replaced by a sulfur atom, but the properties of urea and thiourea differ significantly. Thiourea is a reagent in organic synthesis. "Thioureas" refers to a broad class of compounds with the general structure (R¹R²N)(R³R⁴N)C=S. Thioureas are related to thioamides, e.g. RC(S)NR₂, where R is methyl, ethyl, etc

Applications

Thiourea per se has few applications. It is mainly consumed as a precursor to thiourea dioxide, which is a common reducing agent in textile processing.^[6]

Other uses

Other industrial uses of thiourea include production of flame retardant resins, and vulcanization accelerators.

Thiourea is used as an auxiliary agent in diazo paper, light-sensitive photocopy paper and almost all other types of copy paper.

It is also used to tone silver-gelatin photographic prints.

Thiourea is used in the Clifton-Phillips and Beaver bright and semi-bright electroplating processes. It is also used in a solution with tin(II) chloride as an electroless tin plating solution for copper printed circuit boards.