The Influence of Chemical Compounds on the Sulfur K-Edge X-Ray Absorption near Edge Spectrum of the Vulcanized Rubber

Abstract

The vulcanized styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) was studied using X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy (XANES). The effect of the sulfur containing molecules left over in the sample on the precision of the sulfur K-edge XANES spectrum was focused. The six rubber compounds used here were vulcanized with different curing systems including convention, semi-efficiency and efficiency. For each compound, the measurements were preformed on two different samples which were the untreated and treated chloroform samples. The results showed when compounds were cured with conventional or semi-efficient vulcanization system, the XANES spectra between the untreated and treated sample was changed with very high sulfur to accelerator ratio. On the other hand, the tremendous dissimilarity was observed when compounds were cured with the efficient vulcanization system. Thus the sample treatment was necessary when using XANES to identify sulfur crosslink.