Characterization of Rubber Materials by Multi-Functional Pyrolyzer GC-MS Approach with Pyrolyzate Library

Introduction

Rubber is an elastomer material which has been used extensively in our daily life. About 26 million tones of rubbers are produced annually. There are over 200 types of synthetic rubbers which are account for about 70% of the total rubber production. Synthetic rubbers are produced by polymerization of monomers. Vulcanization is a chemical process to cure rubber using sulfur and heat for better durability and desired physical properties of rubber products. In addition to sulfur, other additives such as zinc ligands and benzothiazole derivatives are used to activate and accelerate the vulcanization process. After vulcanization, antioxidant additives may also be added to enhance the rubber’s longevity. Desirable properties of rubbers can be obtained by adding various types of additives in the manufacture process. Due to the complexity of rubber materials, characterization of chemical properties and composition of rubber materials is tedious and costly. Rubbers mainly consist of two types of components, the polymeric backbones and the additives. The polymer backbone is commonly characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), while the additive is analyzed by thermogravimetric Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (TG-FTIR). For a comprehensive study of the organic components in rubber materials, a multi-functional Pyrolyzer-Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry system (Py-GC- MS) has been developed and used to characterize both polymeric backbone and the additives components in recent years. The Pyrolyzer uses strong heat to desorb and pyrolyze the organic compounds from rubber samples in a heating process, whereas the GCMS enables separation, detection and identification of the released compounds. In this Application News, we describe the analysis procedure of pyrolysis to characterize and identify the additives and backbone of unknown rubber samples through distinctive chromatographic fingerprints and dedicated additives-polymer MS libraries.

May 9, 2016 GMT