Visualization of residual anisotropic interactions in crosslinked natural rubbers by dipolar local field measurements and 2H natural abundance NMR spectroscopy.

An extension of the exploitation of indirect observation of 1H nuclei through 13C resonances is presented in the case of crosslinked elastomers. It is demonstrated that, by using this method in vulcanized elastomers above Tg, a direct visualization of residual dipolar interactions on different functional groups as well as their dependence on motional constraints is available. It is also shown that 2H natural abundance NMR spectra of elastomers provide similar information on motional constraints by way of residual quadrupolar interactions.