Thermooxidative study of raw natural rubber from Brazilian IAC 300 series clones

The improvement of rubber tree species is of key importance due to the worldwide market demand of this renewable material essential for several types of industries. The thermal performance of natural rubber produced from new clones of IAC 300 series, and the Malaysian RRIM 600 clone (used as control) have been evaluated using DSC and TGA/DTG techniques in air and nitrogen atmospheres. The results have shown that in oxidative atmosphere, the thermal stability of the Brazilian clones was slightly better than that of the Malaysian clone RRIM 600, and that, in an inert atmosphere, there are no significant differences in the thermal behavior among them. The natural rubbers from IAC clones have shown good thermal stability up to 300 °C in inert and oxidative atmospheres, which is important for several industrial applications. The decomposition changes from a one step process to a three step process, when moving from an inert to an oxidative atmosphere. The index of thermal stability has shown that the natural rubbers have higher thermal stability in inert atmosphere.