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Abstract
Effect of Leaching on the Physical Characteristics of Cast
NR Latex Filmst
Under ambient humidity conditions, leaching increases
tensile strength and modulus of vulcanised natural rubber (NR) latex films.
The increase in modulus of NR vulcanisates is generally analogous to an
increase of the apparent physical crosslinks in the vulcanisates. However,
in vulcanised NR latex films, changes in modulus brought about by leaching
the films in water may not he due to the crosslink formation or rearrangement.
These results are very unlikely to happen in the mild conditions adjusted
for leaching the films. Some insights into the leaching mechanism in vulcanised
NR latex. films are discussed. Leached latex films generally gave higher
tensile strength and modulus values than unleached films. Equilibrium swelling
results showed that leached NR latex films inclined to swell more than their
unleached counterpart. The discrepancy between the leached and the unleached
is more apparent in swollen films with low sulphur content. The changes
seen in the equilibrium swelling could be the result of changes in the polymer
mobility of these films, whereby swelling was affected by the polymer mobility,
upon removal of some of the non-rubbers of films. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
(NMR) and Differential Scanning Colorimeter (DSC) techniques were used to
detect polymer mobility. When these techniques were applied to vulcanised
NR latex, films, the polymer mobility of leached samples were found relatively
greater than that of the unleached samples. The equilibrium swelling, NMR
and DSC results agreed with the theory of an increase of free volume in
the latex films after the removal of leachable materials.

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