Highly Strong and Damage-Resistant Natural Rubber Membrane via Self-Assembly and Construction of Double Network

Natural rubber latex (NRL) is commonly employed to manufacture medical protective appliances. However, the characteristics of weakness and fragility of NRL membranes limit their further application. To achieve excellent strength and damage-resistance of the rubber membrane, this work reported a facile core–shell structure construction strategy via self-assembly with modified sodium lignosulfonate (MSLS) and NRL to create a tough membrane. The double network can be formed after introducing polyamide epichlorohydrin resin (PAE) into the NRL membrane. Specifically, the first robust MSLS-PAE network can break in advance to dissipate applied energy, thereby achieving high fracture energy and tensile strength of ~111.51 kJ m−2and ~37 MPa, respectively, which overtakes numerous soft materials. This work facilitates more studies on latex/lignin-based products with high performance and good stability for the functional application of biopolymer.Keywords:natural rubber latex membrane;self-assembly;double network;toughening;sodium lignosulfonate