In this paper we apply the combined and complementary techniques of FT-Raman and FT-IR spectroscopy to the analysis of inorganic fillers and activators and demonstrate where useful information can be gained from one or both of these techniques.
IR spectroscopy has been extensively used to study gum vulcanizates, one of the earliest examples of this being by Corish [6] in 1960 using microtomed sections of vulcanizate. However it has been much more common to use this technique to identify the polymer, with the filler giving an inconvenient mask to the polymer spectrum, than to use IR to identify the filler.
It has already been demonstrated [7,8] that FT-Raman spectra can be obtained from elastomers reinforced with inorganic fillers and the resulting FT-Raman spectrum used to identify the elastomer. The elastomer identification is possible because the relatively low Raman signals derived from most of the inorganic species used as rubber fillers result in a much lower degree of spectral masking than is the case with IR spectroscopy.