A series of new waterborne polyurethanes (WPUs) was successfully prepared by prepolymer process from renewable source, hydroxytelechelic natural rubber (HTNR), with different amounts of DMPA (1.6-8.4 wt %), different molecular weights (1000-4000 g mol À1 ), and different levels of epoxide (0%-20%) of HTNR. It was found that the urethane conversions of prepolymer were over 80% as calculated by FTIR technique. The resulting HTNR2000-based WPUs exhibit a uniform particle size, which decreases from 420-to 83-nm diameters with an increase in the amount of DMPA from 2.9 to 6.6 wt %. The particle size also decreases with an increase of soft segment or with an increase of epoxide content. They are well stable more over 6 months and without a significant difference in particle size compared with starting of them. Chemical structure of WPU films was confirmed by FTIR, 1 H-NMR, and 13 C-NMR. Molecular weight and polydispersity were determined by SEC. In addition, thermal and water uptake properties were investigated. The experimental results reveal that the DMPA content, molecular weight of HTNR, and epoxide content play an important key role in water uptake and thermal properties.

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The incompatibility between hydrophilic silica and hydrophobic rubber is an important problem on using silica in nonpolar rubber. In this study, hydroxyl telechelic natural rubber (HTNR) that contains hydroxyl‐terminated groups was introduced into silica‐reinforced natural rubber (NR) in order to improve the bonding strength between rubber and silica. The properties of silica‐reinforced NR compounds and vulcanizates as a function of varying silica contents were evaluated at a fixed HTNR concentration at 8% wt/wt of silica content. The results show that the improvement of silica dispersion and decreasing of filler–filler interactions (Payne effect) were obtained in the NR compounds and vulcanizates with HTNR addition. The enhancements in tensile properties, crosslink density, abrasion resistance, heat build‐up, and thermal properties of the silica‐reinforced NR vulcanizates with added HTNR confirmed that HTNR performed good as interfacial modifier of silica. In the study, the optimum properties of silica‐reinforced NR vulcanizate were achieved at 30 phr silica with 2.4 phr HTNR. However, HTNR still showed poorer efficiency than the synergy between commercial silane coupling agent, bis [3‐(triethoxysilyl) propyl] tetrasulphide (TESPT) and diphenylguanidine (DPG) when used in silica‐reinforced NR vulcanizate. J. VINYL ADDIT. TECHNOL., 26:291–303, 2020. © 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers

The influence of accelerator/sulphur and co-agent/peroxide ratios on cure characteristic and vulcanisate properties in mixed vulcanisation of styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) was investigated in this work. Accelerator/sulphur ratio was investigated with three alternative sulphur curing systems, namely conventional, semi-efficient and efficient vulcanisation (EV) systems. Zinc dimethacrylate (ZDMA) was used as a co-agent to enhance the performance of peroxide and to provide ionic linkages. Ionic linkages contributed by ZDMA create bridges between two polymer chains. The ZDMA/peroxide ratio was varied from 2 to 10. The concentration of dicumyl peroxide was held fixed while the ZDMA content was varied. Cure characteristics, mechanical properties, dynamic mechanical properties and heat aging resistance were investigated in relation to the crosslink structure. Increasing the ZDMA/peroxide ratio significantly increased density of ionic linkages, especially in combination with the EV system. The combination of EV system with high ZDMA/peroxide ratio provided the highest ionic crosslink density and the lowest polysulphidic crosslink density: this enhanced the mechanical properties, the dynamic mechanical properties and the thermal stability of SBR vulcanisates.