Abstract
Natural rubber (NR) and isoprene rubber (IR) were cured by sulfur and accelerator to give rubber vulcanizates. Both vulcanizates were subject to solvent extraction to purify them, followed by the γ-ray irradiation in air at room temperature. The deterioration by γ-ray (0-20Mrad) was investigated by the changes of tensile properties, hardness, swelling, and ATR-IR spectra. The tensile strength decreased much by a few Mrad irradiation, which is elucidated due to the difficulty of stretch-induced crystallization of polyisoprene after the irradiation. Modulus at 50-% elongation, network-chain density, and hardness did not show significant variation with the γ-ray dose. These irradiation results suggest both degradation and crosslinking occur comparably in the rubber vulcanizates and the regularity of polyisoprene chains may be somewhat randomized to prevent them from crystallizing on stretching.
