Kinetic diffusion of toluene through vulcanized natural rubber composite / Nur Hafizatul Aiza Mohamed Silah

Oil spills are a major problem for people all over the world. They not only demand the environment but also human health and aquatic life. Many methods have been used to clean up oil spills to solve this problem. In recent years, researchers have focused on using polymers to absorb the oil in a spill. The diffusion of toluene through vulcanized natural rubber(NR) has been studied using swelling tests. Toluene is used to simulate the phenomenon oil spill. The NR was vulcanized with Dicumyl peroxide. Peroxide-crosslinking depends on temperature and curing time. The NR/DCP was characterized by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The FTIR absorption spectra reveal the characteristic peaks and estimated intensity of peaks. NR was undergoes swelling test by immerse into toluene to obtain diffusion parameter. The dependence of diffusion coefficient, sorption, permeability and transport mechanism was investigated. The higher the temperature and the longer the curing time, the lower the diffusion of the solvent through polymer. The kinetic adsorption was fitted to the pseudo–first-order.