Grafting of Maleic Anhydride onto Cyclized Natural Rubber by Reactive Processing: the Effect of Time and Rotor Speeds

Grafting of maleic anhydride onto cyclized natural rubber has been performed in an Internal Mixer with variation of time and rotor speeds. The grafted product were analyzed by Fourier Transformed Infra Red to determine the presence of Maleic Anhydride onto Cyclized Natural Rubber, and Thermographymetric Analysis to investigate its thermal properties. Fourier Transformed Infra Red spectra confirmed that the grafted product accured by appearance of characteristic band at 1780 cm-1. The optimum time of grafting process was 8 minutes, by means of carbonyl index. The rotor speeds were not significantly effected the grafting degree. Characterization by Thermographymetric Analysis observed that the thermal properties of grafted product were not significantly different from cyclized natural rubber standard. Keywords: grafting, cyclized natural rubber, maleic anhydride, time and rotor spee