Cost effective new bleaching agent for rubber industry

A new brand of latex bleaching agent has been introduced from this month for sole crepe and crepe manufacturing in the rubber industry.

The new product was developed from basic raw materials by the undergraduates of the University of Peradeniya at the Laboratory of C and T Worldwide (Pvt) Ltd., where they underwent industrial training.

Though the brand is new, it is the same chemical that has been used for the last three to four decades in Sri Lanka. It was modified in the 1980s by a leading rubber technologist, who made it water soluble to make the treatment of latex easier.

It took nearly seven years to perfect this product, to make it user-friendly and commercially viable. Being a locally manufactured product, this will be more beneficial to the plantation companies as a way of reducing production costs.

The Head of the Department of Chemistry, University of Peradeniya had guided students to undergo training at the laboratory under the special inspection of the Senior Professor of Chemistry and the Academic-in-Charge of the instruments laboratory at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, where all sophisticated analysis reports were carried out and obtained. Plantation Industries Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, staff of the Rubber Research Institute and several plantation companies assisted the students in the project.