The real time optical transmittance of swollen heterogeneous natural rubber/poly (ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) blends

Abstract

Abstract This work demonstrates a novel simple method to study the accurate real time optical transparency of a crosslinked polymer blend during its swelling in good solvent. Heterogeneous natural rubber (NR) and poly (ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) (EVA) blends were used for this experiment. Aromatic solvents such as benzene, toluene and xylene were used as the probe molecules. Optical transparency of the samples increases with increase in EVA content in the blends during swelling. The penetrant solvent molecular size also affects the optical transparency of the blends. This new method can effectively measure the optical transparency of polymer gels during their swelling. Also, these blends can be a promising material for optical switching.