Using chemical agent in microwave assisted devulcanization of NR/SBR blends: An effective recycling method

Abstract

The aim of this research was using a new chemical devulcanizing agent (i.e. VitaX) in devulcanization of NR/SBR blend as a model compound of tire rubber by microwave (MW) irradiation. For this purpose, the rubber compounds were prepared at different natural rubber (NR) to styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) ratios (40:60, 50:50, 60:40, 70:30 and 80:20). The rubbers were cured and then ground to particles with different mesh sizes (3, 4, 8, 16 and 30). The effect of irradiation time, stirring speed and particle size on sol/gel fractions, crosslink density (CLD) and devulcanization percent (DP) of the microwave irradiated samples was evaluated. Thereafter, effects of using VitaX and its content (0.3, 0.6, 1, 2, 3 and 4 phr) on devulcanized samples was evaluated. Results showed that using VitaX along with microwave irradiation caused decrease in the CLD and increase in the DP (from 9.51 to 34.85%) compared to the microwave assisted devulcanized samples. Finally, the raw NR/SBR rubber compound were replaced by different contents (10, 20 and 30 phr) of the chemical-microwave assisted devulcanized sample. The mechanical and curing properties of the samples were evaluated by tensile test and Oscillating Disk Rheometer (ODR), respectively. The results showed that at replacing content of 10 wt.%, decrement in the curing time and increment in the scorch time, cure rate index (CRI) and CLD was occurred in the re-vulcanized compound. The chemical-MW irradiation based devulcanization method was found to be a promising method for effective recycling of NR/SBR based rubbers such as tire rubbers.