Pre-treatments of Plastics and Rubbers

In many cases, rubbers are joined to other materials during the process of vulcanisation. However, in other cases, rubbers are joined to other materials after vulcanisation. With this 

In general, rubbers contain a greater variety and quantity of additives than plastics fifteen components in a particular formulation is quite common. These additives or compounding ingredients as they are often called, may well create a cohesively weak layer on the rubber surface. On the other hand, plastics usually contain a small number of additives and usually in relatively low concentration. 

Over the last 50 years many methods have been developed to pre-treat plastics and rubbers. Partly because of the much simpler formulations, pre-treatments for plastics have been the subject of much greater scientific interest. Our understanding of pretreatments for plastics is therefore much greater than that for rubbers. Some of the key studies on pre-treatments of plastics will therefore be outlined in Section 1.2.2. 

Pre-treatments for rubbers have been developed on an empirical basis but some scientific studies of successful pre-treatments have been undertaken. Methods for different rubbers will be reviewed in Section 1.2.3. Rubbers will be considered in groups, namely hydrocarbons that possess little unsaturation, unsaturated hydrocarbons, halogenated rubbers and miscellaneous materials. 

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