Effect of Compounding Ingredients and Crosslink Concentration on Blooming Rate of Natural Rubber Compounds

Blooming is a diffusion process whereby compounding ingredients dispersed in rubber matrix migrate to the rubber surface and appears as a layer of white crystalline material. Blooming is a typical phenomenon observed in rubber compounds which could lead to problems such as discoloration and poor appearance of products as well as loss of adhesion. Cause of blooming was still unclear and this research was carried out to identify the effect of compounding ingredients and crosslink concentration on blooming rate in natural rubber compounds. In this project 6 natural rubber formulations based on three different types of compounding ingredients at two different concentrations of crosslinker were compounded and tested for their blooming characteristics. Sulphur, wax and dithiocarbamate as the compounding ingredients were mixed with natural rubber in the presence of 1 and 6 phr of peroxide as the vulcanizing agents. The effect of crosslink concentration on blooming rate of the compounded rubber was then determined. The blooming rate was determined by the weight of the blooming material on the rubber surface as a function of time. The blooming rate was found to be affected by the types of compounding ingredients and crosslink density of rubber. Wax with 6 phr of peroxide showed the highest amount of bloom and the highest blooming rate while the dithiocarbamate accelerator with 1 phr peroxide showed the lowest amount of bloom and the lower blooming rate. As expected, all the compounding ingredients showed an increase of crosslink concentration as the loading of peroxide increases. The blooming rate was also found to be affected by the crosslink concentration of rubber. As the crosslink concentration increases, the rate of blooming increases as were shown by wax and dithiocarbamate accelerator. However, sulphur showed the opposite trend whereby the crosslink concentration increases but the blooming rate decrease. This could be due to the high peroxide level retarding the sulphur blooming process.