A major responsibility of manufacturing and/or marketing personnel is finding innovative techniques to differentiate their products vs. competition while driving down costs. Vytex was created to lessen the protein load in natural rubber latex for medical products, but has shown unique competitive advantages due to its versatility as a raw material regardless of end product application. The result of that extensive research led to, not only a nearly total protein reduction, but an overall 75% drop in non-rubber content, as noted by a recent ASTM categorization, which can now be targeted to all product manufacturers using NRL as a raw material. The aluminum hydroxide-treated multiple-patented process has shown an affinity for allowing a lower cost of production in various global industries and exhibits distinct improvements in product characteristics when compared to its untreated sibling, traditional natural rubber latex. While certain mainstream producers have already gravitated to the aluminum hydroxide-treated NRL, recently niche product producers have shown a keen interest in specific pre-compounded, further enhanced, specialty versions of aluminum hydroxide-treated NRL. This paper is designed to highlight the strong positive effects that such advances can have on future economic growth, the environment as we learn to use less toxic chemicals, and preservation of natural resources currently used to “clean” NRL.
After years of testing and review, on October 10, 2010, ASTM approved a new latex category, recognizing the unique low non-rubber properties of a material like aluminum-treated NRL. In Category 5, the maximum non-rubber content is 0.5% compared to 2.0% for the other four categories of latex.
The full document can be found FurtherDevelopmentofVytexNRLleadstoStrongNicheMarket Advances July ILC paper 2011here in PDF version.