Measurement of Vapor Sorption of Rubber with a Piezoelectric Quartz Crystal

Abstract

Sorption heilayior of organic solvent vapors in the dry air on raw rubbers such as cispolybutadiene, cis-polyisoprene and acrylonitrile-butadiene copolymer coated on the surfa ce of piezoelectric crystals was observed by measuring the decrease (-ΔF)in the bas ic frequency of the crystals.
In the vapors of good, solvents such as toluene. for cisTpolybutadiene, . -ΔFs were proportional to the solvent concentrations, whereas in nonsolvents, i. e., methyl alcohol fo r cispolybutadiene, no changes in ΔFs at any, concentration were observed. Other combinatio ns of rubber/solvent have shown that the. sorption behaviore ?is in good agreement the results obtained by swelling experiments. In a system of acrylonitrile-butadiene copolymer4-b utanol, however, showed high adsorption behavior. This suggests that polar- pola. i interaction of polymers/solvents is important to observe the adsorption of organic solvents on th e polymer thin film.
Application of quartz crystal microbalance method- could be able to evaluate solvent power for polymer thin films which are coated on quartz crystal.