The purpose of this study was to gain a clearer picture of the structure and properties of vulcanized films made with skim and cream latex from Hevea brasiliensis. The two properties targeted for this study were the elasticity of the films and their permeability to acetone. Surface characterization by atomic force microscopy revealed that vulcanization substantially modified the structure of the films compared to unvulcanized films. Unlike unvulcanized films, particle identity was retained in the vulcanized films made with cream latex, even after 4 weeks of aging. In addition, skim latex gave vulcanized films with greater elasticity than those obtained with cream latex. On the basis of the structural characterization carried out on the latex and films and information from the literature, the greater elasticity of the skim films arose from more entanglements between polyisoprene chains and associations between proteins. Despite differences in the structure, the acetone permeability was very similar for skim and cream vulcanized films.
Skim latex is a by–product of the concentrated latex factory. In this study, plate sheet membrane and cross–flow microfiltration (MF) experiments on skim latex and its wastewater were carried out to initially identify the performance of membrane separation. The series of MF experiments were conducted by using a nitrocellulose plate sheet membrane with a pore size of 0.1 μm and 0.45 μm at the pressures driven at 0.5 and 1 bar. The skim latex, skim latex diluted with water and skim rubber wastewater were tested by membrane separation. Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and cationic polymer were also added to the skim latex and used to combine it with the membrane. The results implied that filtration of skim rubber wastewater with a 0.45 μm membrane at 1 bar pressure gave the highest flux of 152.6 l/m2–hr while the skim latex gave the highest flux of only 1.4 l/m2–hr. When SDS and cationic polymer at 8 mg/l were added to the skim latex and tested, the highest flux was observed to increase as 2.1 and 2.8 l/m2–hr, respectively. When skim latex diluted with 5 and 10 times the amount of water was tested, the highest flux was determined to be 13.9 and 20.8 l/m2–hr, respectively. Using MF to filtrate the skim latex gave 48% SCOD removal. This result reflects that the MF system might be an alternative technology applied in the concentrated latex factory, especially to the rubber skim process.
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