Polyurethane and natural rubber latex blend foam rubber

Latex blending is a common technique employed to obtain a combination of properties inherent in the individual polymers and to enhance the properties of the final product. in this present investigation,the natural rubber latex was blended with polyurethane dispersion. the blended latex was compounded and processed into a latex foam rubber at a laboratory scale using the dunlop process. a comparative study between the natural rubber latex foam and blend foam with different densities was carried out. the mechanical properties of the foam were evaluated and the surface morphology was visualised with sem. the results showed that the blend foam has satisfactory tensile strength and hardness value,but with a higher volume of shrinkage,compression set and age hardening. the elongation at break value was comparable to that of normal nr latex foam. both types of foam showed similar foam cell structure whereby the cells were interconnected with each other and were of open cell structure.