In the process of storage and use of rubber, affect by the environment and human forces, the performance and appearance of rubber changes with time, which is the phenomenon of aging. So what causes rubber to age? There are mainly 7 factors as :

1.Oxygen: free radical chain reaction will occur between oxygen and molecules of rubber when molecular chains fracture or over cross linked, which will lead to property changes.

2.Light: The shorter the light wave, the greater the energy. Rubber is damaged by high-energy ultraviolet ray. In addition to the ultraviolet ray can directly cause the molecular chain to break and cross link, the rubber absorbs the light energy and produces free radicals, which initiates and accelerates the chain oxidation.

3.Heat: raising the temperature can cause thermal cracking or thermal cross linking of rubber. But the basic role of heat is activation. The oxidation rate of rubber was accelerated by increasing oxygen diffusion rate and activating oxidation reaction.

4.water: the rubber in the humid air, rain or soaked in water is easy to destroy. But in some cases, water does not damage the rubber, because the water-soluble substances and hydrophilic groups in the rubber and other components are dissolved, hydrolysis or absorbed by water. Under certain circumstances, water will not cause destruction and even has the effect of delaying aging.

5.ozone: the chemical activity of ozone is much higher than oxygen. It is more destructive so that the molecular chains fracture, but the effect of ozone vary with  rubber deformation.

6.oil: if there is long-term contact with oil medium, the rubber will swell. That is because oil infiltrates into rubber, and produced molecular diffusion, making the network structure of vulcanized rubber changes.

7.Mechanical stress: under the repeated action of mechanical stress, the rubber molecular chain will break and form free tsuen, which will trigger the oxidation chain reaction to form a force chemical process.

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