Note on the Theory of Water Absorption by Rubber

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Abstract
There is still a need for a quantitative theory of the form of curves describing the changes of water content of rubber with time of exposure to various conditions of ambient humidity. Although considerable progress has been made in recent years, both in our understanding of the factors which determine such curves and in the use of empirical relations, there is still no fundamental solution which will enable reliable predictions to be made either for practical purposes or for verification of theories of the mechanism of absorption. It has been shown that, although this problem has much in common with that of the conduction of heat in solids, the chief obstacle to the application of the latter theory is the great deviation from linearity in the relation between humidity and the concentration of water in rubber which is in equilibrium with that humidity. It was also realized that it could not be assumed that the diffusion constant was independent of concentration (Daynes, Trans. Faraday Soc., 33, 531 (1937)). Blake and Morss (Proc. Rubber Technology Conference, London, 1938, 868), making use of this analogy between diffusion and heat conductivity, applied the well known differential eauation:

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