Physico-Mechanical Studies of Natural Rubber/Carbon Black Vulcanizates Containing Reclaim Rubber

Abstract

Locally available reclaim rubber (RR) was used in this study. It was characterized in terms of its oil soluble parts by acetone extract, rubber identified by pyrolysis and FT-IR, carbon black from TGA and ash content by ignition. The RR was utilized in place of natural rubber (NR) in natural rubber/ carbon black compounding. The physico-mechanical, cure characteristics and swelling properties of the vulcanizates were investigated as a function of RR/NR loading. The minimum and maximum torque, cure time, compression set, hardness, swelling index, swelling coefficient, mol percentage uptake of solvent increases with increasing the amount of reclaim rubber but tensile, strength, elongation at brake, rear strength, resilience, scorch time & volume fraction of rubber vulcanizate decreases. Accelerated aging performance also effected with increasing the loading of reclaim rubber in vulcanizates.