REDUCING MITROSAMINE FORMATION IN RUBBER PRODUCTS

摘要

This invention relates generally to rubber products. In particular, but not necessarily restricted thereto, the present invention relates to rubber products which are handled or worn by human beings; more particularly, the present invention relates to a reduction of the effects of nitrosatable substances associated such rubber products. One skilled in the art will appreciate that the polymer contained in natural rubber latex and certain other rubber lattices can be cross-linked without prior coagulation as the product is, in effect, a latex of vulcanized rubber. In manufacturing industries, natural rubber latex is usually pre-vulcanized by heating with dispersions of sulphur and an accelerator, such as zinc diethyldithiocarbamate, to 50-80 °C. The reaction proceeds much more rapidly than the vulcanization of dry rubber at the same temperature with the same vulcanizing ingredients. However, certain ingredients used in manufacture of rubber products such as dithiocarbamate accelerators (vulcanization agents) and substances formed therefrom during vulcanisation are believed to react with nitrites present in human and animal body fluids to produce unacceptable levels of potentially carcinogenic nitrosamines. Furthermore, new constraints of a toxicological nature have appeared in recent years based on various national and regional regulations. The present invention seeks to provide an improved rubber composition. In particular, it seeks to provide a method of producing rubber products, especially those which come into contact with human and/ or animal body fluids which have a reduced tendency to produce nitrosamines during such contact.