The swelling of nitrile rubber by selected species in a synthetic jet turbine fuel

The swelling of nitrile O-ring seals in petroleum distillate fuels has long been attributed to the aromatic species in these fuels. This presents a problem for synthetic fuels as they typically do not contain these aromatic species and thus may cause O-ring seals to shrink and fail.; The composition of petroleum distillate fuels is extremely complex and it is not clear whether the swelling property originates from the aromatics in general, or if certain aromatics contribute more swelling character than others. Consequently, developing a general description of an efficient swelling promoter for O-rings in liquid hydrocarbon fuels will allow an unambiguous selection of candidate swelling agents for synthetic fuels.; To accomplish this, a study was undertaken of the swelling of nitrile rubber (the most widely used O-ring material) in JP-5 (the jet propulsion fuel used by the U.S. Navy) and its synthetic equivalent S-5. Briefly, examining the molecular structure of nitrile rubber showed the fuel resistance of this polymer resides in the polar character of the cyano group suggesting that polar species in general, and hydrogen-bonded species in particular, should serve as efficient swelling promoters. A thorough test program utilizing a unique optical dilatometry method to provide temporal volume swell data, a GC-MS method for measuring the polymer/fuel partitioning, and a spectroscopic examination of thin nitrile rubber films confirmed this hypothesis. This program also showed that swelling character increases with decreasing molar volume which is consistent with previous work and general theories of solubility.; Overall, this study showed that the most efficient aromatic swelling promoters for nitrile rubber are naphthalenes and asymmetrically substituted alkyl benzenes. However, polar species such as ketones and alcohols can be more efficient than aromatics while phenols and aromatic alcohols represent the most efficient potential swelling promoters for nitrile rubber in synthetic fuel.