Dielectric spectroscopy on natural rubber flatted sample with different temperature and time of vulcanization

Rubber (cis 1,4- polyisoprene) is an important raw material for several industrial applications and it is obtained from the Hevea brasiliensis latex (the Brazilian Rubber Tree). Due its suitable electrical, dielectric, mechanical, and thermal properties it is widely used to manufacture tools for handling electrical energy devices. Rubber for such applications is usually prepared with inorganic fillers and chemical additives (accelerators, plasticizer, antioxidants and sulfur). In this work dielectric spectroscopy measurements were performed in the frequency range from 10 μHz to 1MHz aiming to make the correlation between the degree of cross-linking of the rubber and its dielectric loss. Different cross-linking stages were obtained employing samples that were vulcanized during different period of time at different temperatures.