The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 10, 2002
Filed:
Mar. 23, 2001
John G. Lever, Spartanburg, SC (US);
Geoffrey R. Haas, Spartanburg, SC (US);
Bhawan Patel, Bolton, GB;
William O. Burke, III, LaGrange, GA (US);
Robert C. Kerr, Bolton, GB;
Milliken & Company, Spartanburg, SC (US);
Abstract
Certain butadiene and/or natural rubber articles, such as acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR), natural rubber, and derivatives thereof, that exhibit highly desirable long-term effective antimicrobial characteristics. Such formulations are intended to be vulcanized to provide solid or foam rubber articles which can be utilized in a variety of different applications. Preferably such butadiene rubber formulations comprise silver-based antimicrobial compounds. As such silver-based compounds are deleteriously affected by utilization of standard non-silicone-rubber curing agents, such as sulfur-based catalysts, the ability to provide such an effective antimicrobial vulcanized rubber article is rather difficult. However, the invention encompasses the utilization of different catalyst species that permit vulcanization and silver stability for long-term antimicrobial performance of the silver-based compounds. Articles and specific vulcanizing procedures in accordance with such a novel antimicrobial vulcanized rubber are also included within the scope of this invention.