Green Antimicrobial Natural Rubber for Personal Protection Products

Abstract

The objective of the present work is to prepare and evaluate green flexible antimicrobial natural rubber vulcanizates for application and manufacturing of personal flexible protection products as; swimming suits and diving allowance…etc. Natural rubber and their specific additives as well as some plant extracts Curcumin, Rosemary as natural plant of high bioactive phenolic compounds, and conventional pharmaceutical drug as Thiabendazole, were mixed through the ordinary rubber mixer. The rheological characteristics were estimated to determine the curing time. The compounded rubber was vulcanized at 142oC at curing time estimated from the rheological characteristics. The evaluation of the prepared vulcanizates was carried out, through identification with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) . Specific surface area measurements and measuring the mechanical, swelling, cytotoxicity and antimicrobial properties. It was observed that the physico mechanical and chemical properties of all investigated vulcanizates are good before and after exposure to thermal oxidative aging at 90oC for 6 days. The cytotoxicity of the investigated rubber vulcanizates gave negative results towards normal human fibroblast cell line (BJ1) that confirms their safety. Moreover, antimicrobial activity results indicated that the release of different antimicrobial agents loaded on natural rubber vulcanizates inhibited the growth of different types of bacteria or fungi on the surface of rubber.