IMPROVEMENT OF QUALITY AND STORAGE STABILITY OF PRE-VULCANIZED NATURAL RUBBER LATEX CONCENTRATES

Abstract

State of vulcanization is quite important in pre-vulcanized 1 artices. But excess compounding ingredients which may retain after pre-vulcanization cause further formation of primary linkages between the latex particles and such lattices would become unsuitable for product manufacture. Henee a safer and an advanced technology is essential to prepare pre-vulcanized latex with long term storage stability. This study describes developments made to prevent over vulcanization and thereby improve storage stability of pre-vulcanized latex. Three different processing methodologies were used in the preparation of pre-vulcanized lattices with a view to achieve long term storage stability. Latex quality parameters and tensile properties of the films were evaluated. The results revealed that one of the method, i.e.technique 1 which contain 40% of field latex and 60% of pre-vulcanized latex yield the best stability compared to the others and this technique exhibited good tensile strength in comparison to the other methods.