Parallel plate capacitor designed to determine the dry rubber content in natural rubber latex

Abstract

A simple parallel plate capacitor was applied to determine the dry rubber content (DRC %) of the field latex. Based on an electrostatic theory used to describe capacitors, a parallel plate capacitor was specially designed and fabricated. Both experiments and statistical analysis have shown a good correlation between capacitance values and corresponding DRC% values in the inverse relationship. Ranges of capacitance and DRC% have presented 910 nF to 935 nF and 45 to 25, respectively. The study suggests that the DRC% can be measured with sufficient sensitivity and accuracy by parallel plate capacitor.