The use of styrene-butadiene rubber waste as a potential filler in nitrile rubber: order of addition and size of waste particles

• Autor(a) principal: Baeta,D. A.
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Zattera,J. A., Oliveira,M. G., Oliveira,P. J.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Brazilian Journal of Chemical Engineering
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-66322009000100003
• topic: Vulcanization; Adhesion; Elastomer; Cure

Styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) has large applications in the shoe industry, especially as expanded sheets used to produce insoles and inner soles. According to TG analysis, the rubber content in SBR residues (SBR-r) was found to be around 26-wt%. Based on that data, a cost-effective technique for the reuse of SBR-r in Nitrile rubber (NBR) was developed. Later, the effect of SBR-r on the cure behavior, mechanical performance, swelling, and crosslink density of reused rubber was investigated, with more emphasis placed on the effect of both particle size and loading of waste filler. Cure characteristics such as optimum cure time and scorch time were then reduced by the increasing amount of SBR-r filler. Owing to the reinforced nature of the largest particle size SBR-r, the best results for the mechanical properties of NBR were those in which SBR-r was added at the end of the cure process. The study has thus shown that SBR residue (SBR-r) can be used as an economical alternative filler in NBR.