Preparation of natural rubber-coated banana cellulose-based sheet by DBD plasma treatment for water resistance improvement

Abstract

In recent years, there has been much research conducted for the development of plant-based polymeric alternatives to petroleum-based products. Natural rubber is promising due to its outstanding properties such as water repellency, elasticity, toughness, impermeability, adhesiveness, and electrical resistance. In this work, natural rubber was used as a surface coating on cellulose sheet prepared from banana cellulose pulp in order to obtain eco-friendly cellulose products with improved water resistance. The fabrication of natural rubber-coated banana cellulose-based sheet was accomplished with the aid of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma treatment in order to enhance the coating ability of natural rubber on the fiber surface. The results showed that the surface hydrophilicity of cellulose sheet was increased after DBD plasma treatment due to the increase of oxygen-containing functional groups on the plasma-treated cellulose surface. The optimum DBD plasma treatment time was 30 s. The plasma-treated cellulose-based sheet was further immersed in natural rubber solution. The water contact angle could be increased from 55.7º in the case of untreated cellulose sheet up to 79.4º for the natural rubber-coated cellulose-based sheet. In addition, SEM micrographs also revealed coating of natural rubber on fiber surface.