Improving of Adhesion Ability of Laminated Rubber Glove Manufacturing Process

As a latex based product, the laminated rubber glove is used for heavy duty purposes and the construction industry. Prepared laminated rubber sheet is pasted on the palm area of the glove, which is made of Kevlar fabric. The low adhesion causes the laminated rubber sheet to separate from the fabric. The main objective of this research is improving the adhesion ability of laminated rubber glove in the manufacturing process. This study consisted of three main experiments (I, II and III). Preliminary experiments were done based on a common formula of adhesive and the existing process line before applying the modifications in each experiment. Experiment I was carried out to find out the accurate volume of secondary solvent, called SBP, to give the best adhesion, accurate viscosity value, and the Total Solid Content (TSC) value during the highest adhesion level of the adhesive blend which is used to paste the rubber sheet to the fabric. Experiment II was conducted to modify the existing process line by changing the conditions of critical process steps identified by preliminary tests, which are smoothing, maturing and curing/vulcanization in an autoclave to increase the adhesion ability of laminated rubber glove. Experiment III was done to change the adhesive formula by changing the tackifier (wood resin) amount which is the most influential ingredient to enhance the adhesion ability of adhesive under most appropriate combinations of the curing temperature with curing time, based on the results of experiment II. Adhesion tests were done by using Tensile Tester for all completed replicates prepared under each sample of experiments I, II and III, and data were analyzed by using MINITAB 16 statistical software. According to the end result obtained through these experiments, the new adhesive blend should consist of the adhesive compound with primary solvent to SBP in the ratio 1:2, with the addition of 14% of wood resin as tackifier, based on the total for the adhesive formula, to improve the adhesion value, and the manufacturing process line should consist of two smoothing turns, a 24 hour maturing period as resting time before curing, and a curing temperature of 1200Ϲ with 90 minutes curing time in an autoclave to improve the adhesion ability of the laminated rubber glove.