An improvement on existing methods to desulfurize oligosulfide silanes generates no added raw materials or waste streams in addition to the sodium chloride which is generated as a byproduct in the current manufacturing process for polysulfide silanes. This is accomplished by using mercaptosilane salts as desulfurizing agents, which yield more product in addition to that already obtained from the desulfurized silane of higher sulfur rank. The process simply entails reacting an oligosulfide silane with a mercaptosilane salt to thereby obtain an oligosulfide silane whose average sulfur rank is less than the starting oligosulfide silane. Coproduct sulfide salts can be recycled back to the oligosulfide manufacturing process. The mercaptosilane salts are novel materials as well.