Evaluation of the Buffer Capacity of Crude Rubbers

The hypothesis was advanced in the preceding paper that an important factor in determining the rate of cure of rubber is the acid-base equilibrium developed during vulcanization and that such an equilibrium is determined to a large extent by the nature and quantity of the latex serum substances remaining in the crude rubber mass. In effect, this serum material was regarded as a buffer substance. If this were true, it follows that differences in the buffer capacities of various crude rubbers should be demonstrable and, in the following discussion, two sets of experiments designed with this object in view are described.