Identification of the Elements of an Industrial Rubber of Unknown Formulation

This work deals with the identification of organic and inorganic elements of a rubber supplied by an industrial partner. The rubber formulation is not known. For this purpose, a methodology based on reverse engineering was followed to identify the rubber composition. Information on the material composition and rubber formulation was obtained using several characterization techniques such as acetone extraction, TGA and DSC thermal analysis, infrared spectroscopy, GC-MS and X-ray fluorescence. The interpretation of the results showed that industrial rubber is mainly composed of styrene-butadiene polymer, additives such as BHT and carbon black. Also, mineral elements like zinc, silica, aluminum and magnesium.