Structure Control of Rubber to Improve the Properties

Abstract

The education and research in our laboratory are introduced. Our research and concept for rubber materials are briefly described in this paper. To improve the properties of rubber materials such as crosslinked rubber, block copolymers and polyurethane, we have tried to control the crosslinking structure, strain-induced crystallization and microphase structure by blending, heating, heat elongation and supercritical CO₂ method. For instance, strengthening occurred by enhancing the strain-induced crystallization in the blends and by forming stacked domain structure in the polyurethane.