Radiation vulcanization of ethylene-propylene rubber with polyfunctional monomers

This paper reports on the sensitizing efficiency of several polyfunctional monomers to radiation vulcanization of ethylene-propylene rubber. And the r esults show that triethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA) gave the best re sults. TEGDMA not only lowers the vulcanization dose (D-v), but also increa ses the tensile strength greatly. The content of TEGDMA does not affect the D-v of TEGDMA-EPM, but affects the tensile strength at the D-v. At best co ntent (0.04 mol/100 g EPM), the tensile strength is increased from 6.0 to 1 2 MPa, and the elongation is 790% at the D-v. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd . All rights reserved.