Structure Analyses of Co-crosslinked Rubber using Contrast Variation Small-angle Neutron Scattering

Abstract

We studied the structure of polybutadiene rubber (BR) crosslinked with zinc diacrylate (ZDA) to elucidate the structure of the high crosslink density BR (HC-BR) using a contrast variation small-angle neutron scattering (CV-SANS) method. The partial scattering functions of the self-correlation of BR, the self-correlation of ZDA aggregates, and the cross-correlation between BR and ZDA aggregates were successfully evaluated from CV-SANS. The detail analyses of these partial scattering functions revealed the existence of a HC-BR layer around the ZDA aggregates. This is the first time quantitative structural analysis of the HC-BR layer in this rubber material.