New Raw Materials with Defined Amounts of Bark Slivers from Field Coagula

This research illustrates the opportunity of using field coagula directly as raw materials for rubber manufacturing without transforming to block or crepe rubber. Field coagula with different amounts of wood, mostly bark slivers, varying from 0 to 50 wt %, reveal a linear relationship between the viscosity and wood contents. The measurement of the viscosity is performed using an oscillating disk rheometer and a Mooney Viscometer. This linear relationship is independent of changes in the molecular weight of these samples and therefore confirms that the increasing of the viscosity observed here is due only to changes in wood content. The result of further investigation on more than twenty samples of field coagula also supported this linear relationship. This implies that the linear relationship found here may be general to all field coagula treated by the procedures stated herein and that it may be used as a tool in the production of rubber goods from field coagula. Additionally, this relationship is successfully used to prepare rubber/wood composites with the precise amounts of slivers from field coagula.