Potent Application of Scrap from the Modified Natural Rubber Production as Oil Absorbent

The production of raw natural rubber always ends up with leftover latex. This latex is later collected to produce low grades of rubber. The collection of this latex also depends on the latex's quality. However, reproducing the latex may not be applicable if the latex contains many specks of dirt which will eventually be discarded. In this work, an alternative solution was to utilize such rubber in a processable form. This scrap rubber (SR) from the production of natural rubber grafted with polymethyl methacrylate (NR-g-PMMA) production was recovered to prepare an oil-swellable rubber. The rubber blends were turned into cellular structures to increase the oil swellability. To find the suitable formulation and cellular structure of the foam, the foams were prepared by blending SR with virgin natural rubber (NR) at various ratios, namely 0/100, 20/80, 30/70, 50/50, 70/30, 80/20, and 100/0 (phr/phr). The foam formation strongly depended on the SR, as it prevented gas penetration throughout the matrix. Consequently, small cells and thick cell walls were observed. This structure reduced the oil swellability from 7.09 g/g to 5.02 g/g. However, it is interesting to highlight that the thermal stability of the foam increased over the addition of SR, which is likely due to the higher thermal stability of the NR-g-PMMA waste or SR. In summary, the blending NR with 30 phr of SR provided good oil swellability, processability, and morphology, which benefit oil recovery application. The results obtained from this study will be used for further experiments on the enhancement of oil absorbency by applying other key factors. This work is considered a good initiative for preparing the oil-absorbent material based on scrap from modified natural rubber production.