Air Permeability of Latex Air Bladders

Manufacturer: Among the products we make from natural rubber latex, are various kinds of air bladders. These bladders require excellent resistance to air permeability during their service life. But we find that natural rubber has too high an air permeability in some range of our products. What could we do to reduce the air permeability of our bladders?

John Woon (Senior Latex Consultant): I'm sorry to say that among all the common elastomers in the market including polychloroprene, nitrile, butyl, etc., natural rubber has the lowest resistance to air permeability. Both polychloroprene and nitrile rubbers have quite good resistance to air permeability with butyl being the best.
My advise to you is to either try blending natural rubber latex with polychlororene (or nitrile latex) or do a "laminate dipping" with natural rubber and polychloroprene or nitrile. Please take note that laminate dipping usually would give you better results compared to blending.

You could of course also try dipping with butyl latex but the proccesability could be difficult.

I would also suggest that you include the incorporation of laminar types of fillers (e.g. mica and some clays) in your study.

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