Abstract
1. Information received from rubber manufacturers on their experience of the effects of manganese and copper on aging is summarized. Although there is evidence that the amounts of these impurities in fillers tended to increase during the early war years (1939–42), it seems to be the general experience that little trouble arose from their effects on the properties of the rubber. Fillers containing as much as 0.05–0.10 per cent of manganese, or 0.005 per cent of copper, have not shown any obvious harmful effects. 2. Experiments with a large number of manganese compounds, including naturally occurring (mineral) forms and salts of organic acids, used in amounts equivalent to 0.01 per cent manganese on the raw rubber, have failed to show any pronounced harmful effect on the aging (oven or oxygen bomb) of a vulcanized natural rubber containing mercaptobenzothiazole, although deterioration was noticeably accelerated in some cases. Probably on account of the smallness of the effects observed, it is not possible as yet to draw any conclusion as to the relative activities of different types of manganese compound. 3. According to results of previous workers, manganese in the amount used in the present experiments can produce a more serious effect than these experiments indicate. The effect of manganese is known to depend on the type of mix used, and this aspect of the problem would thus appear to merit further investigation, as does also the influence of the method and degree of dispersion of the manganese compound in the rubber mix.
Modified Nanoclays/Straw Fillers as Functional Additives of Natural Rubber Biocomposites
