Improvement properties of EPDM rubber using hybrid chitin/clay filler for industrial products

Abstract

THIS work deals to synthesis chitin from Shrimp shells, that were collected from the local market scraped, washed, and ground. Deproteinization and decalcification process were applied on the ground shells to obtain pure chitin that identified and characterized by FTIR spectra, thermogravimetric analysis and scanning electron microscope SEM. The rubber compounds were prepared by incorporation of chitin as biomaterial and the other additive as curative system in ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) rubber matrix using the laboratory two-roll mill. The rheological, rheometric characteristics and the physico-mechanical properties of the prepared rubber vulcanizates before and after exposure to thermal oxidative ageing swelling properties, water uptake and chitin dispersion in rubber were investigated. It is found that the tensile strength of EPDM/chitin vulcanizates was increased as the concentration of chitin increased up to5 phr while the modulus at 50 % elongation and hardness increased with increasing chitin concentration. The samples containing 5 and 10 phr chitin show good thermal stability. Also, the effect of nanoclay concentration (3,5,7 and 10 Phr) as binary filler properties of EPDM rubber were evaluated. It was observed that, the rheological characteristics and the other physico-mechanical properties were improved due to apply nanoclay as binary filler with chitin.