Abstract
Following a treatment with edible oils and/or washing, the tensile properties of vulcanized rubber were measured to assess the effect of the sorbed edible oil. Rubber soiled with soybean oil, after 8 weeks storage in a 30$^{\circ}C$ incubator, retained 61% of its original strength, and rubber soiled and washed retained the 73%. The strength of the rubber soiled with oil decreased remarkably during the first 2 weeks. After repeating this soiling and/or washing 7 times, the soiled rubber had only 16％ of its original strength, the rubber soiled and washed had 45%. In all cases, breaking elongations were not decreased as much as tensile strengths; therefore , more of the elasticity of the rubber remained than did the strength. From these results it is concluded that washing after soiling with oils is very helpful in maintaining the strength of rubber. In this study, three different surfactant solutions, AS, AE and AS/AE, were used. In the AS solution, the contact angle of the soybean oil was greater and the work of the detergency was the smaller than in either the AE or the AS/AE solution, the loss of the strength of the rubber washed in AS solution did not decrease significantly. These results suggest that rolling-up, emulsification and solubilization also participate in the removal of oil from rubber.