Analysis, Composition and Structure of Rubber and Rubber Products

Seven years has passed since the review of methods of analysis of rubber and rubber products by Burger was published in this Journal. At that time the author covered a broad field of endeavor with special emphasis on classical methods of analysis. He also foresaw the future of instrumental techniques, many of which were only beginning to be useful in rubber chemistry. The questions that must be answered today seem to us, from the vantage point of seven years of remarkable progress, to be more complex. Which new techniques have proved to be most useful in helping the analytical chemist to solve daily problems of analysis of his own and his competitors' products? Which techniques are giving him a tool to study the relation between composition, structure, and properties of rubbers? Which techniques can help the polymer chemist to better chart his course in the search for new and better elastomers? The new techniques, and a few of the old ones, have advanced so rapidly in the last decade that it is presumptuous to think that we can answer these questions completely in a review paper. What, then, is the purpose of this review? We could prepare a complete bibliography and comment briefly on the more important papers. But this has been adequately done, with a very broad scope, in the reviews appearing in Analytical Chemistry every two years. We feel this approach would be redundant. We have chosen, instead, to attempt to cover available techniques from the standpoint of what can be done with them in several important areas, using key papers from the literature as a basis. Our added comments are the result of years of experience in the ceaseless quest for the best use of analysis and structure-determining tools in advancing research, development, and production in the field of elastomers.