Transport of methyl methacrylate monomer through natural rubber

Abstract

The diffusion and transport of inhibitor-free methyl methacrylate monomer through crosslinked natural rubber (NR) have been studied at different temperatures. NR has been vulcanised by conventional, efficient and peroxide vulcanisation technique. ESR spin probe spectroscopy was used to study the flexibility of NR network chains at different temperatures. The dependence of diffusion coefficient on the nature of crosslinks and temperature has been studied. The intrinsic diffusion coefficient was found to increase with increase of temperature. The interaction parameter, permeability, sorption coefficient and molecular weight between crosslinks have been evaluated using diffusion data. The morphology of the swollen network and thermodynamic parameters has been determined using diffusion data. The efficient and peroxide system showed the least uptake and the conventional system showed the highest uptake. This study also proved that same extent of crosslinking can be achieved for different vulcanising systems by curing the samples to a common rheometric torque. The theoretical modelling shows Fickian mode of diffusion with a slight deviation.