One of the important roles of the Thai Rubber Association is attendance in conferences and seminars on rubber research and development to opine feedbacks and suggestions to researchers so that they can conduct further researches and expand them into commercial utilization. In 2015, Thailand Research Fund invited Ms. Piyaporn Saelim, TRA Manager to become a member of expert panels (2016 Rubber Group) in considering targeted research proposals which aim at meeting the country’s requirement.
The Targeted Rubber Research Project aims at the research and development of new rubber products and related products containing rubber components in order to add value and increase the domestic consumption of the country and to create new products as alternatives to manufacturers and consumers. However, they need to be competitive in the market or can replace the existing products. And the manufacturers can further expand the production into industrial level. The researchers proposed the following interesting researches: 1) the development of techniques to monitor rubber cup lump quality quickly by the following 3 techniques 1.1) to measure the amount of dry content in rubber cup lump with electronic spectroscopy; 1.2) to measure dry content in rubber cup lump with image analysis of near-infrared spectroscopy; 1.3) analysis machine for percentage of dry content of rubber cup lump with high frequency. These researches require the development of techniques to measure the percentage of DRC, which will provide fast, accurate and efficient measurements of rubber cup lump quality. These researches add value to rubber and improve its competitiveness. They are alternatives to visual measurement of dry content in rubber cup lump. 2) Preparation of a thermal insulation that can withstand fire from natural rubber to add value to natural rubber and to improve the properties of natural rubber as well as further development to prototype products into commercial utilization. And 3) the application of latex serum for medical purpose, livestock, agriculture and rubber industry. This is to obtain new knowledge in the production of anti-microbial compounds from the industry waste, including rubber latex serum, adding value and further development to prototype products for commercial utilization. Additionally, there are also interesting selected topics: 1) project on development of rubber testing laboratory as ASEAN Reference Laboratory for rubber products, 2) project on data of concentrated latex and dry rubber safety, 3) research project on anti - high strength shock rubber-mixed materials, 4) project on standard of pool-coating rubber from concentrated latex, 5) research and development project on industrial standards of bicycle inner and outer tubes, 6) research on rubber composites for rubber prototypes, and 7) robots removing rubber products from mold.
Research and development is very important to the rapid development of Thai rubber industry. The Thai Rubber Association expects cooperation and support from all relevant sectors, including government, educational institutes and private sector to push forward the research projects into commercial utilization, bringing about the benefit of the country as a whole.
The progress of Rubber Research Project