Applications of Imaging ATR to Rubber Analysis

FTIR analysis using ATR imaging enables the analyst to probe a rubber surface for spatial descriptions of the following: locations of microscopic contaminants, hard phase/soft phase maps of thermoplastic vulcanizates and thermoplastic elastomers.  While an EDS equipped scanning electron microscope can provide valuable maps of elemental features, such capability is often insufficient to distinguish rubber and plastic materials whose elemental composition are virtually identical.  In this paper we will show that Imaging ATR allows for things like needle-in-haystack contaminant analysis, as well as evaluation of dispersion quality in TPVs and TPEs.   We’ll include material related to ATR crystal selection,  when to select ATR rather than reflectance.   There will be comparisons between imaging ATR and SEM mapping, and between imaging ATR and atomic force microscopy (AFM).