| AVS 54th International Symposium | |
| Applied Surface Science | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session AS+BI+NS-WeA |
| Session: | Fabrication and Characterization of Functional Soft Material Surfaces |
| Presenter: | J.A. Ohlhausen, Sandia National Laboratories |
| Authors: | J.A. Ohlhausen, Sandia National Laboratories M.C. Celina, Sandia National Laboratories M.R. Keenan, Sandia National Laboratories |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
As elastomeric materials age, their mechanical properties can change such that they do not perform their desired function. It is important to understand the aging behaviour of such elastomers, so that predictive aging models can be developed. In that light, much work has been done to understand oxygen diffusion limited aging processes under accelerated aging conditions for a range of elastomers.1-2 In these studies, mechanical properties as a function of depth were determined under differing temperature/time conditions. In addition, chemical changes were measured by analyzing microtomed sections using FTIR. Unfortunately, these measurements were difficult to perform on carbon-black filled samples and were also relatively time consuming. Ideally, an alternative method is needed to measure the chemical oxidation profiles of commercial o-rings containing fillers in a quick and efficient manner. In this talk, the usefulness of ToF-SIMS as a technique to measure the position-dependent extent of oxidation in filled elastomers will be discussed. Accelerated aging in 18O is used to demonstrate the ability of SIMS to directly measure the extent of oxidation. Examples of 18O- cross section line scans in aged elastomers will be discussed and compared to known diffusion limited degradation mechanical profiles. It will be shown that filled elastomers can be analysed using these methods. Additionally, the ability to measure oxidation profiles in air-aged samples will also be shown. Thus, ToF-SIMS is seen as a rapid evaluation tool for the measurement of elastomer oxidation for engineered elastomers. The benefits and limitations of the technique will be discussed. Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.
1 M. Celina, J. Wise, D. K. Ottesen, K. T. Gillen, R. L. Clough, Polymer Degradation and Stability 60 (1998) 493-504
2 M. Celina, J. Wise, D. K. Ottesen, K. T. Gillen, R. L. Clough, Polymer Degradation and Stability 68 (2000) 171-184 .