Deproteinized natural rubber film reinforced with silane-modified silica nanoparticles

Abstract

Mechanical properties and morphology of the deproteinized natural rubber (NR) films reinforced with modified silica (SiO2) nanoparticles were studied in this research. In the step of deproteinization, a chemical method followed by centrifugation was used to reduce the amount of protein from 0.42 wt% to 0.11 wt%. Structure-modified nanosilica with Silane A174 was used as an additive to reinforce the deproteinized films. The addition of 1 phr of the modified nanosilica exhibited better tensile strength, tensile force at break, modulus at 500% and elongation at break which were improved significantly compared to those of bare films. The modified nanosilica dispersed uniformly in the rubber matrix with the nanoparticle size less than 100 nm observed from the scanning electron microscope. The prepared rubber films containing the modified SiO2 nanoparticles have great potential to produce the NR gloves having very tiny amounts of protein for medical use which still provide the good mechanical strength compared to the standard ones.