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Investigation of Fracture Stress in Deproteinized Natural Rubber with Poly(trimethylene carbonate) Grafted
Shu Morishita1, Hiroaki Yoshida1, Ha Thu Nguyen2
1Division of Materials Science, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, 8916-5 Takayama-cho, Ikoma, Nara 630-0192, Japan.
Abstract:
The present work aimed to develop a novel deproteinized natural rubber (DPNR) composite reinforced with microcrystalline cellulose grafted with poly-(trimethylene carbonate) (MCC-g-PTMC). The hypothesis is that the amorphous and flexible PTMC chains improve the compatibility between MCC and DPNR, thereby enhancing mechanical properties. To verify this, MCC-g-PTMC was synthesized by ring-opening polymerization of trimehtylene carbonate and then blended with DPNR to evaluate its dispersibility and mechanical reinforcement. In the vulcanized DPNR/MCC-g-PTMC1, which introduced MCC/DPNR (28/72, w/w), the rubber exhibited stable mechanical properties compared to the conventional DPNR/MCC composite and the DPNR/MCC-g-PLLA composite grafted with the crystalline biodegradable polymer poly-(l,l-lactide) (PLLA). Specifically, the strain of DPNR/MCC-g-PTMC1 increased to 800%, while it was 750% the control samples of MCC/DPNR and DPNR/MCC-g-PLLA. The improvement of the stress at break maintain about 24 MPa, although it was around 22 MPa in the case of DPNR.
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