Study of the effect of ionizing radiation on the structure of natural rubber latex by positron annihilation technique

At the present research, were studied the changes in natural rubber latex structure, due to electron beam by a 3 MeV, 25 m A Dynamitron electron accelerator. The natural rubber latex was irradiated at 30, 40 and 50 kGy/s dose rate, over a total dose range from 150 to 250 kGy, for each dose rate used. From natural rubber latex irradiated films were prepared by casting with 0.7 mm. thickness. In the main part, the study was made by positron annihilation lifetime (PAL), this technique is unique in the determination of free-volume properties due to the fact that positronium atom (Ps) is found to be preferentially localized in the free-volume region of polymeric materials. The positron lifetime measurements were performing using a gamma-gamma coincidence system. These results were analyzed by PATFIT-88 program computer into three components, the long-lived component for orthopositronium (o-Ps) with parameters lifetime (τ3) and formation intensity (I3), were plotted and analyzed for each dose rate and total dose used. Besides with τ3 were calculated the mean free-volume size based on the spherical model for the free-volume bubble, found that the free-volume decrease slightly with the total dose due to the crosslinking of natural rubber latex. Besides was studied the effect of dose rate on tensile strength, the tensile strength is increased with the total dose although there was not a clear effect due to the dose rate. Also the films were subjected to aging in order to determined the thermal stability of natural rubber latex irradiated, the results show that the films have good stability. Besides was used the infrared spectroscopy to determine the changes due to the crosslinking by variations in the characteristically absorption bands for cis 1,4-polyisoprene. (Author)