Abstract
Nonrubber components (NRCs) play an important role in the outstanding mechanical property of natural rubber (NR). The main inositol component of NRCs in natural rubber latex (NRL) is l-quebrachitol. In this study, the influence of l-quebrachitol on the properties of centrifuged natural rubber (CNR) was investigated. The NRL was centrifuged twice to remove most of the NRCs. After that, l-quebrachitol was added in the latex with per hundreds of rubber (phr) vary from 0% to 0.8%, and the vulcanized CNR were prepared. It is shown that the properties of vulcanized CNR were greatly changed, with T
90 reduced from 19 to 15 min, the tensile strength increased from 5 to 9 MPa, T
g reduced by about 2°C, and the ability for strain-induced crystallization was enhanced. It was proved by FTIR results that l-quebrachitol was linked to the CNR crosslinking network with ester bond.