Solid-state carbon-13 NMR Studies of vulcanized elastomers. V. Observation of new structures in sulfur-vulcanized natural rubber

The complementary application of the NMR inversion recovery measurements and the computer fitting of the overlapping spectral region is found to be a useful method for structural analysis of vulcanized natural rubber in the solid state. Since the linewidths in 13C-NMR spectra of solids are relatively broad compared with the differences between chemical shifts, some weak signals are completely obscured in the resulting spectra. If the resonances have sufficiently different relaxation times, such as methyl and methylene carbons, it is possible to detect neighboring heavily overlapped signals by using the inversion recovery delay τ value at which the interfering strong resonance has null intensity. The 20 resonances observed in the spectra of crosslinked rubbers are tentatively assigned to the structural units formed during the vulcanization process. It is found that vulcanizates containing smaller amounts of sulfur (1 and 3%) show insignificant changes in the NMR spectra for curing times of 30 and 90 min. Structural modifications in rubbers cured with 10% sulfur continuously increase with the increasing curing time up to 120 min, indicating a significant loss in double bonds in the later stages of the reaction.