Alginate as Dispersing Agent for Compounding Natural Rubber with High Loading Microfibrillated Cellulose

Abstract

Natural rubber (NR) reinforced with high loading of microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) was fabricated in the presence of sodium alginate as a thickening and dispersing agent in NR latex. The tensile strength and Young’s moduli of the 50% wt. MFC loading-NR composites were 13.6 and 1085.7 MPa, which were about 11.3- and 329-times enhanced compared with those of the neat NR film. The maximum elongation at 313.3% was obtained from 30% MFC loading, which was a 3.3-fold increase of that of the NR film. The thermal stability of MFC–NR films was slightly reduced, while the glass transition temperature remained unchanged at −64 °C. The MFC–NR films exhibited high water adsorption ability, toluene resistance, and biodegradability.

Green Natural Rubber Composites Reinforced with Black/White Rice Husk Ashes: Effects of Reinforcing Agent on Film’s Mechanical and Dielectric Properties

“…More resistance to toluene uptake was observed in the NR composites with higher BRHA/WRHA content. The toluene uptake of the composite films decreased with increased filler loading and was considerably lower, as compared to that of pure NR film [16,39]. The low toluene uptake of NR-B and NR-W films was exhibited at RHA loading of 60-100 phr, which represented about 260-300% (or 0.15-0.17 of that of the NR film), due to polar nature of silica oxides, the major constituent in both RHAs.…”

“…Sodium alginate is suitable for the use as a dispersing agent in this system, because it can improve RHA dispersion and reduce filler-filler interactions. Previously, sodium alginate as a dispersing agent was proven to improve the stability, filler dispersion and viscosity of composites of NR-coal fly ash [16], NR-sago starch [38] and NR-microfibrillated cellulose [39].…”

Preparation, characterization and application of gamma irradiated some water soluble polymers/natural rubber latex blends

“…The thermal degradation of the same samples CMC/10% NRL and ALG/10% NRL films irradiated to 10 kGy passed and completed through two thermal stages at (250–350°C), and (350–465), respectively, but at higher temperatures giving rise to a residual weight of ~8.5% ( Figure 7B ) . The higher residual weight in case of un irradiated samples may due to the coagulation of NRL during latex compounding with CMC and ALG [ 21 ] and the irradiated CMC/10% NRL and ALG/10% NRL films decomposed at higher temperature than those unirradiated samples due to cross‐linking effect of NRL with natural polymers. The thermal degradation of all the main functional groups in the CMC/10% NRL and ALG/10% NRL films happened in the temperature range 300–465°C through loss of low molecular mass fragments.…”

Latex and natural rubber: recent advances for biomedical applications

“…Most NRL and NR biomedical materials are still not degradable or do not present absorption by the body due to slow microbiological biodegradation, making it necessary to remove the material after implantation [8] . The blending with other compounds provides higher levels of degradation of NR, for instance, NR blended with cellulose and sodium alginate showed a mass loss of 50% after 56 days [30] . The association of NR and crosslinked nanocellulose also showed more promising degradation results by using Eudrilus eugeniae, in which about 60% weight loss was observed after 120 days [16] .…”