IODINE DOPING OF PREVULCANIZED NATURAL RUBBER LATEX AND ITS EFFECT ON DYNAMICAL MECHANICAL PROPERTIES

Abstract

Abstract Conducting polymers are finding new application areas in energy storage devices, optoelectronics, actuators etc. Iodine doped semiconducting prevulcanized natural rubber latex (RVNRL) is a potential candidate for many such applications. We had already demonstrated for the first time that pre-vulcanized NR latex can be doped by iodine to become electrically conducting and doping process is not affecting the flexibility or processability of the films. Synthesis and characterization of intrinsically electric conducting preculcanized natural rubber latex are briefly discussed. Further, dynamical mechanical properties of these doped RVNRL are reported. The glass transition (Tg) temperature of the chemically doped polyisoprene material was found to be shifted to higher temperature region with the iodine concentration. However, the mechanical properties are found to decrease at higher concentration of the dopant after showing an increasing trend as in the case of Tg at lower doping levels. An effort has also been made to explain this visibly contradictory behavior.