Abstract
Natural rubber (NR) as a renewable biopolymer is often produced by acid coagulation of fresh natural latex collected from Hevea brasiliensis. However, this traditional process is facing a huge economic and environmental challenge. Compared with the acid coagulation, spontaneous or microorganism coagulation is an ecofriendly way to obtain NR with excellent performance. To clarify the influence of different sugars on NR quality, several sugars were used to assist the coagulation process. Influence of different sugars on microstructure and cold crystallization were examined by 1H NMR, DSC, etc. The results indicated that sugars exhibit different biological activity on terminal components of fresh field latex and can influence the resultant molecular structure and basic properties. Brown sugar exhibits higher metabolic activity and is inclined to decompose the protein and phospholipids crosslinking compared with other sugars. The larger molecular weight of sugar molecule is beneficial for the formation of the stable α lamellae phase and higher overall degree of crystallization.
Highlights
Natural rubber (NR), an important renewable biopolymer material which is often produced via coagulation of the fresh natural latex collected from the tree Hevea brasiliensis, has been used in many applications for its outstanding properties [1]
Our previous results demonstrated glucose exerted an obvious effect to adjust the number of ω-terminal and α-terminal of natural rubber molecular chains via the metabolism of microorganisms [21]
It can be seen that molecular weight of raw natural rubber with auxiliary coagulation by different sugars ranges from 1.10 × 106 to 1.49 × 106
Summary
Fresh natural Latex was collected from Xida Farm located in Chengmai County, Hainan Province, China. Toluene (A.R.), glucose (A.R.) was purchased from Guangzhou chemical reagent factory, Guangzhou, China. Trehalose (99%) was manufactured by Hayashbara Co., Ltd., Okayama, Japan. White sugar (food-grade) and brown sugar (foodgrade) were purchased from local supermarket.
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