Surface analysis of rubbers and plastics using secondary neutral mass spectrometry.

Rubber and plastics are complex mixtures of long-chain polymers, smaller organic additives used as plasticizers, mildicides, fungicides, colorants, etc., and inorganic additives such as carbon and silica. Surface analysis of such materials is at once difficult and important. The difficulty lies in the need to identify specific carbon molecules on a very similar organic surface. The importance arises from the dramatic effect that the distribution and concentration of additives have on the physical properties of polymeric materials. Recently we have had some success in applying laser desorption post-ionization mass spectrometry in measuring the surface concentration and distribution of both additives and the polymer molecules themselves. The key has been to use the photoionization properties of the analyte of interest to augment mass spectrometric information