PREPARATION OF PREVULCANIZED NATURAL RUBBER LATEX VIA HYBRID RADIATION AND PEROXIDE VULCANIZATIONS

In order to improve the viscoelastic property of the Radiation Prevulcanized of Natural Rubber Latex (RVNRL), an attempt has been made onto the processing method by combining both radiation and peroxide vulcanizations. In this study, hexanediol diacrylate (HDDA) played a major role as a sensitizer during the gamma radiation vulcanization and tert-butyl hydroperoxide (t-BHPO) acted as the co-sensitizer in the peroxide vulcanization. The rubber film obtained from irradiation at 6 kGy had modulus at 500%, modulus at 700%  and tensile strength of 3.0, 11.0 and 27.0MPa respectively, which is more than 37% increment compared to control film. Besides, the crosslink percentage of the rubber film showed 4% increment from 90% to 94%. The utilization of HDDA and t-BHPO during the hybrid vulcanization process was analysed using FTIR spectroscopy. The FTIR spectrum confirmed the absence of C-O and C=O from HDDA and t-BHPO in the hybrid RVNRL-peroxide samples. It is suggested that all the compounds are fully utilized during the radiation vulcanization.