The Action of Hypochlorous Acid on Rubber

Abstract

Abstract It has been previously observed that when rubber latex is treated with cold aqueous hypochlorous acid, the simple additive attachment of the hypochlorous acid molecule at the ethylenic center of each C5H8 unit of the rubber molecule may be accompanied by a considerable amount of substitutional chlorination (cf. preceding article). An analogous behavior has now been found to characterize the interaction of dissolved rubber (rubber solutions) with hypochlorous acid, but in this case marked differences in the properties of the reaction products become manifest. In the treatment of dissolved rubber some evidence of substitutional chlorination is directly apparent, even where the amount of hypochlorous acid does not exceed one molecular proportion per C5H8 unit, and considerable replacement of hydrogen by chlorine occurs when the reagent is present in excess of this amount; indeed, by using a suitable excess of the latter, it is possible to obtain chlorinated materials with a maximum chlorine content of 66 per cent. Now it is of practical importance to note that, whereas the chlorinated materials obtained from latex are characterized by a high degree of insolubility, the analogous materials from dissolved rubber are relatively soluble, and in the case of some of the more highly chlorinated materials are readily soluble in the ordinary solvents for rubber.