Study on laminated natural rubber (nr) latex based films for mould cleaning application
Loading...
Date
2015-10-01
Authors
Mufidah Md Sidek
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The consumption of natural rubber (NR) latex is increasing recently hence increased the waste latex in landfill. This is due to the unstable nature of the latex compound and the strict specifications in the quality of latex products. Improper use of waste latex can create serious ecological and environmental problems. Due to this problem, an attempt was made to laminate the NR latex with waste natural rubber (WNR) latex as mould cleaning compound to substitute the dry rubber compound. The latex lamination films were prepared by arranging the NR latex sheets (outer layer) alternately with WNR latex sheet (core layer). The outer layers contain the cleaning agent for cleaning purposes. Effect of different types and different loading of cleaning agent were investigated. NR latex film with monoethanolamine (MEA) cleaning agent gives the best mechanical properties compare to NR latex film with di-(3-aminopropyl) ether of diethylene glycol (DCA 221) cleaning agent. The optimum loading for MEA cleaning agent was obtained at 5 phr, the increment of MEA loading caused the mechanical properties of the NR latex film to decrease. The effect of different thicknesses of NR latex laminated film at different moulding temperature on mechanical properties of NR latex also has been studied. The laminated film with thinner core layer needed low moulding temperature while the laminated film with thicker core layer needed higher moulding temperature to form the film with good mechanical properties. The core layer gave laminated latex film with better mechanical properties, but excessive of core layer portion caused the decreased in the properties. The effectiveness of mould cleaning, either NR latex or NBR latex compound was depends on the flow ability of the fresh latex layer with mould cleaning agent. The mould cleaning effectiveness of the NBR latex laminated film is observed to be better than NR latex laminated film. It is maybe due to the flow ability of NBR latex is better than NR latex and NBR latex has good resistance to oil compare to NR latex.