Carbon Black Replacement in Natural Rubber Composites Using Dry-Milled Calcium Carbonate, Soy Protein, and Biochar

Recent discoveries have shown that calcium carbonate and soy protein interactions can be used to reinforce rubber composites with improvements on the effective crosslink density and moduli. However, the method to incorporate the soy protein into the rubber matrix may be costly to scale up, since it involves microfluidization and drying steps prior to rubber compounding. In this work, a simpler process involving dry-milled calcium carbonate and soy protein was used to explore filler blends of calcium carbonate, soy protein, biochar, and carbon black. By blending these filler materials in various ratios, rubber composite samples with 40–50% of the carbon black replaced by sustainable alternatives were made. These composites had essentially the same tensile strength, with better toughness and elongation properties relative to the carbon black control. These composites would reduce dependence on petroleum and be more amenable to the rubber composite compounding infrastructure.

Effect of Short Banana Fiber on Hardness and Tensile Properties of Natural Rubber Composites

Banana fiber (BF) was utilized as a reinforcing filler for natural rubber (NR). BF/NR composites containing banana fiber contents of 5, 10, and 15 parts per hundred parts of rubber (phr) were mixed on a two-roll mill machine. The hardness, tensile properties of BF/NR composites were studied. It was found that the hardness and moduli of BF/NR composites are higher than that of NR. Despite tensile strength and strain at break of BF/NR composite lower than NR. Moreover, hardness and moduli of BF/NR composites increased, while tensile strength and strain at break decreased with the increase in banana fiber content. Thus, banana fiber exhibited improvement in the stiffness significantly of NR composites

Effect of particle size of leather wastes on the processing, vulcanization, and physico-mechanical properties of natural rubber/leather wastes composites

In this work, the effect of particle size and the content of leather wastes on the processability, vulcanization, and mechanical properties of a natural rubber/leather wastes composites was studied. From a reduction process, leather waste was later sieved to classify particles smaller than 0.6 mm and particles between 0.84 and 2 mm, hereafter called fine and coarse residues, respectively. The morphology of the wastes was analyzed from scanning electron microscopy micrographs. Natural rubber/leather wastes composites with 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 phr (parts per 100 parts of rubber) of treated leather wastes were obtained in a torque rheometer. Mixtures with coarse wastes exhibited a slightly higher torque than mixtures with the fine wastes; additionally, increasing the wastes content yields in an increased torque during the final stage of the process. The addition of leather wastes increased the vulcanization time and stiffness of the composites; additionally, materials with fine wastes showed lower vulcanization times compared to materials with coarse wastes. Composites with fine leather wastes exhibited higher density and tensile modulus than materials with coarse wastes; however, only the composites with 80 and 100 phr of wastes showed a statistically significant difference in hardness values. The specific energy consumption (SEC) was calculated from the results obtained with the torque rheometer; it was found that for all the formulations the SEC decreased as the phr of leather residues increased. It was found that it is possible to use leather wastes in natural rubber composites, to obtain adequate materials feasible for some applications.