Using a silanized silica nanofiller to reduce excessive amount of rubber curatives in styrene‐butadiene rubber

Abstract

In recent years, the rubber industry has come under pressure to improve health and safety at work, minimize damage to the environment, reduce costs, and increase competitiveness. Rubber compounds contain additives including curing chemicals, which are hazardous and harmful. Reducing their use or eliminating them altogether will be beneficial to rubber compounders and manufacturers of rubber articles. A styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) was cured and reinforced with a high loading of precipitated amorphous white silica nanofiller. The silica surfaces were pretreated with bis(3-triethoxysilylpropyl) tetrasulfide (TESPT), which is a sulfur-bearing bifunctional organosilane to chemically adhere silica to the rubber. The chemical bonding between the filler and rubber was optimized via the tetrasulfane groups of TESPT by adding accelerator and activator. The rubbers were subsequently cured and their hardness, tensile strength, elongation at break, stored energy density at break, tearing energy, tensile modulus, Young's modulus, and bound rubber content were measured. This study showed that using the filler in combination with a sulfur-donor accelerator was the most efficient method for curing and reinforcing the rubber. This led to a significant reduction in the use of the curing chemicals, a faster curing cycle, and very good mechanical properties for the rubber vulcanizate.

Effects of partial replacement of silica with surface modified nanocrystalline cellulose on properties of natural rubber nanocomposites

“…Silica has always been used as an important rubber reinforcing filler for its excellent reinforcing effect [1][2][3], the capability of reducing the heat build-up [4,5] and rolling resistance of rubber [6,7]. Therefore, silica as an indispensable filler in rubber products has been widely used and investigated.…”

“…Therefore, silica as an indispensable filler in rubber products has been widely used and investigated. However, its high density (2.5 g/cm 3 compared to general raw rubber 1.1 g/cm 3 ) makes the density of silica filled vulcanized rubber relatively high, thus reversing an important property of polymer materials, namely their low density. Moreover, silica leads to a number of shortcomings such as long processing time, high energy consumption and environment pollution during processing.…”

The role of interlayer grafting on the mechanical properties of magadiite/styrene‐butadiene rubber composites

“…First, omission of Si69 obviously precludes the formation of Si69‐mediated grafting between SBR and the MGD surface. Filler‐SBR coupling certainly contributes to enhancing mechanical reinforcement in silica/SBR composites, so it probably also plays a role in CMGD/SBR composites. The second factor simply considers sulfur content.…”

“…The success of silane‐modified silica as the active filler in elastomer composites exemplifies this point, reviewed elsewhere and in references cited therein. Since its commercialization nearly 25 years ago, tire treads incorporating silane‐modified silica have achieved simultaneous improvements in rolling resistance, wet traction, and wear resistance .…”

“…For these reasons, tailoring the surface chemistry of filler particles can be used, in principle and in practice, to control structure-property-performance relationships and improve the physical properties of elastomer composites. 1 The success of silane-modified silica as the active filler in elastomer composites exemplifies this point, reviewed elsewhere 1,[3][4][5][6] and in references cited therein. Since its commercialization nearly 25 years ago, tire treads incorporating silane-modified silica have achieved simultaneous improvements in rolling resistance, wet traction, and wear resistance.…”