A NEW product has been developed from basic raw materials by undergraduate students from the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka.
The students developed a latex bleaching product for sole crepe and crepe manufacturing in the rubber industry from the Laboratory of C and T Worldwide (Pvt) Ltd., where they underwent industrial training.
According to the students, the chemical used in the new brand is the same chemical that has been used for the last three to four decades in Sri Lanka, and which was modified in the 1980s by a leading rubber technologist, who made it water soluble to make the treatment of latex easier.
The development has taken seven years to make the product 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 proponents say.
The project has been carried out under the guidance of the Head of the Department of Chemistry, University of Peradeniya, and the Senior Professor of Chemistry and the Academic-in-Charge of the instruments laboratory at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, as well as the Plantation Industries Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, staff of the Rubber Research Institute and several plantation companies.