Sunday, February 13, 2011

Evaluation of recycled rubber in compounds

Recycled rubber is blended with virgin rubber compound in two ways

  1. The total elastomer content from the virgin compound plus recycled rubber is kept at 100 phr (part per hundred rubber)
  2. The recycled rubber ia added on top of the virgin compound , where the total elastomer content becomes more than 100 phr.

Researcher found that at more than 20 phr natural rubber reclaim, tensile strength are higher when reclaim rubber is added on the top of 100 phr than when elastomer content of the blend is constant at 100 phr.

The amount of recycled rubber used in a rubber compound must be optimized. Experiments can be used to determine the effect of varying amount of recycled rubber on desired properties.

The natural rubber compound containing 30 phr recycled rubber had shorter scorch time , higher cure rate, and lower maximum torque than the control compound with no recycled rubber.

In the case of virgin rubber compound was mixed , cure and cryogenically ground. The ground recycled rubber was added to the virgin rubber compound at different levels. It appears that 5 phr ground butyl rubber content is the optimum level. At 10 and 15 phr tensile properties and air permeability are reduced significantly.

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