Sustainable Epoxidized Guayule Natural Rubber, Blends and Composites with Improved Oil Resistance and Greater Stiffness.

Production of petroleum-based synthetic rubbers (SRs) causes an enormous carbon footprint for the rubber industry. Carbon footprint would be reduced if natural rubber (NR) could take a larger market share and replace significant quantities of SR. However, some SRs have higher oil resistance than NRs, and, in applications where these properties are needed, chemically modified NR will be required.

Liquid Guayule Natural Rubber, a Sustainable Processing Aid, Enhances the Processability, Durability and Dynamic Mechanical Properties of Rubber Composites.

Petroleum-based oils are widely used as processing aids in rubber composites to improve processability but can adversely affect rubber composite performance and increase carbon footprint. In this research, liquid guayule natural rubber (LGNR), produced from guayule natural rubber, was used as a renewable processing aid to replace naphthenic oil (NO) in Hevea natural rubber, styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and guayule natural rubber (GNR) composites. The rheological properties, thermal stability, glass transition temperature, dynamic mechanical properties, aging, and ozone resistance of rubber composites with and without NO or LGNR were compared.