The Effect of Second Filler on Cure Characteristic and Mechanical Properties of Si-69 Treated Precipitate Silica/NR Composite

Abstract

Silica has been widely used as non-black reinforcing filler, however, the filler-filler interaction has been an important issue. Cure characteristic and mechanical properties of the rubber compound and rubber vulcanizate were affected both by filler-rubber interaction and filler-filler interaction. There have been, presently, a number of natural fillers which are also used as fillers for the rubber, i.e. fly ash, sawdust and zeolite. This work therefore will study the effect of second filler added into the 13% Si-69 treated precipitate silica (PSi) filled natural rubber compounds. It was revealed that the scorch and cure time of the rubber compound increased with the content of treated PSi. This was the effect of excess of the silane treated onto PSi which would agglomerate and form the cluster of polysiloxane and would then be able to absorb vulcanizing accelerator resulting in extending the scorch and cure time of the rubber compounds. However, this effect was over ruled with the reinforcing effect as could be seen by the increasing, with the contents of PSi, of maximum torque and mechanical properties of the vulcanizates. The NR compounded with treated PSi content of 20 phr selected to study the effect of excess silane on the cure characteristic of hybrid fillers NR composite. The addition of sawdust led to longer scorch time and cure time but not much change of the maximum torque. As expected, the modulus of the rubber vulcanizate increased with the sawdust content whereas the tensile strength and elongation at break decreased with the sawdust content. The incorporation of zeolite could accelerate the cure reaction therefore both scorch time and cure time decreased. The maximum torque also increased with the content of zeolite. Both modulus and tensile strength increased with the content of the zeolite whereas elongation at break tended to be unchanged. In the case of using fly ash as the second filler, the cure time tended to be unchanged. However, the maximum torque tended to be increased with the content of fly ash. It was found that the modulus, tensile strength increased but elongation at break decreased. Interestingly, the excess of Si-69 used effect pronouncedly for the addition of zeolite and fly ash cases as the excess silane could promote the interaction between fillers surface and rubber molecule accept for sawdust