A comparative study on mica waste‐filled natural rubber foam composites made out of creamed and centrifuged latex

Abstract

A comparative study on processed mica waste (PMW) filled natural rubber latex foams (NRLF) made out of centrifuged latex and creamed latex was conducted. The morphological, mechanical, and degradability properties of the composites were studied. The PMW was incorporated at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 phr loading. Morphological studies revealed that both types of composites possess open‐cell structures. However, creamed latex based foam rubber composites showed foam structures with much larger cell sizes. PMW loading showed similar influences on the properties of the foam composites, irrespective of the latex type used. Increasing filler loading increases tensile strength, modulus at 100% elongation, tear strength, compression set, shrinkage, biodegradability, and antibacterial properties and reduces elongation at break and extractable protein content while offering a slightly dark color to the composites. It was also found that the creamed latex based foam rubber exhibits lesser extractable protein content and slightly inferior properties in tensile strength, shrinkage properties and color compared to centrifuged latex based foam rubber. However, it was shown that type of latex does not influence biodegradability, antibacterial properties, and color retention. Thermogravimetric analysis results confirmed the thermal resistance and reinforcing ability of mica in both NRLF composites.

Physical properties of natural rubber latex foams produced with processed mica waste powder and creamed natural rubber latex

“…The characteriza-tion results were published in the previous studies conducted by the same research group (Dananjaya, et al, 2022a;Dananjaya, et al, 2022b).…”

Preparation and investigation of properties of deproteinized natural rubber nanocomposites incorporating functionalized nano‐alumina by in situ emulsion polymerization

“…[2] Despite its widespread use and numerous applications, NR suffers from certain drawbacks such as relatively low resistance to heat, oxygen from the atmosphere (mostly to ozone), and various oils or hydrophobic/hydrocarbon solvents mostly because of its unsaturated hydrocarbon chain structure and its nonpolar nature. [3,4] Hence, several practical methods have been proposed such as blending or grafting natural rubber with other polymers, [5][6][7][8] modifying natural rubber chains [9][10][11] and reinforcing fillers, [12][13][14][15] which can help to remedy these limitations while preserving the desirable properties of the natural rubber. Among the above-mentioned methods, reinforcing fillers, as a simple and versatile strategy has attracted significant attentions to prepare NR composites by selecting appropriate fillers into a NR matrix to achieve the mechanical and thermal properties demand for the industrial use of rubber composites.…”