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Accelerated liquefaction of vulcanized natural rubber by thermo-oxidative degradation

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Abstract

Liquefaction of vulcanized natural rubber presents a high value-added way out to the challenge of ever-increasing waste rubber. In this work, accelerated liquefaction of vulcanized natural rubber (NR) into liquid rubber through thermo-oxidative degradation was carried out at 210 ℃ in 15 min. The structural evolution of degraded NR was characterized by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), elemental analysis (EA) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results showed that vulcanized NR underwent a rapid process of oxygen absorption at the initial stage of degradation, which led to fast liquefaction. It was also illustrated by more oxygen-containing functional groups (–S=O and –C=O) increased with time in the liquid rubber. The Mn of the sol part sharply decreased to 1.259 \(\times\) 104 g mol−1 in 15 min. The volatile gases generated in the degradation process were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis coupled with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. These results indicated that the liquid rubber was obtained by efficient oxidative scission of the cross-linked sulfur bonds and the main chains. A liquefaction mechanism of vulcanized NR was proposed, which was also confirmed by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. This study provides a promising efficient approach to liquefy waste NR into a raw material for the recycling circle of rubber.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the research foundation provided by International Cooperation Project by MOST, SQ2019YFE012146, Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51273110) and the Jiangsu Science and Technology Project (BA2016002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Zhen Zhang, Yuxin Zhang, Adeel Ahmad Hassan & Shifeng Wang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic and Developmental Sciences, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Jiayi Li

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  1. Zhen Zhang
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Correspondence to Shifeng Wang.

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Zhang, Z., Zhang, Y., Li, J. et al. Accelerated liquefaction of vulcanized natural rubber by thermo-oxidative degradation. Polym. Bull. 79, 1767–1786 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-021-03580-6

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