Thermal analysis and mechanical methods applied to studying properties of SBR compounds containing ionic liquids

Abstract

The goal of this work was to study new systems for activating sulphur vulcanisation of butadiene-styrene elastomer (SBR) using thermal analysis techniques complementarily with rheological and mechanical properties measurements. New activating systems consist of nanosized zinc oxide and ionic liquids (ILs) – benzalkonium or alkylammonium salts. In this article, we discuss the effect of zinc oxide and ILs on the cure characteristics, vulcanisation kinetics, crosslink density, mechanical properties, damping behaviour and thermal stability as well as resistance to thermooxidative and UV ageing of SBR.Nanosized zinc oxide with ILs reduced the vulcanisation time and temperature of rubber compounds. Their application results in increased vulcanisate crosslink density as well as the improvement of mechanical properties such as tensile strength and vibration damping ability. The influence of ionic liquids on SBR properties depends mainly on the anion present in the molecule. The most active ILs seem to be those with the lactate anion.