Studies of elastomer oxidation via thermal analysis

Elastomers are used in many industrial applications because of their remarkable toughness and elasticity However, the source of these properties is also a weakness, in that loss of properties via oxidation is an important factor in their selection. Thermoanalytical techniques, such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), provide useful tools for the characterization of the stability of elastomers. DSC can not only be used to determine oxidative induction times under isothermal conditions but can also be used to determine apparent overall activation energies of the oxidation process. An evaluation of these techniques is made and the technique is used to compare the oxidation susceptibility of polybutadienes of different microstructure. The results of these DSC scans are interpreted in terms of the chemistry of the oxidation process using FTIR results.