Rubber Products with Objectionable Smell/Odour

Manufacturer: Some of our dipped products have some residual smell which could be objectionable to our customers. Can you explain the cause of this odour and how we could overcome this.

John Woon (Senior Latex Consultant): This is usually due to chemical actions during vulcanization. Some residual accelerators and sulphur would result in "sulphur-like" smell. However the most common cause of objectionable smell is the purification of the latex compound as a result of bacterial and fungal attack on either the raw latex or compounded latex.

Some believe that the hydrolysis of the residual monomers in the synthetic latices could be another possible cause.

You can overcome the problem by taking remedial actions to prevent the above mentioned incidences. However, for stubborn odour, I suggest you  look into the possibility of adding reodorants/deodorants into your latex compounds at, say, 0.5 phr. Most of the good deodorants are blends of essential oils which must therefore be first emulsified before use.

You could of course spray some of this into the tumbler if you are using this.