Curing behaviors, mechanical properties, dynamic mechanical analysis and morphologies of natural rubber vulcanizates containing reclaimed rubber

Abstract

Ground tire rubber (GTR) with crosslinked structure shows hardly any plasticity and processability, giving rise to its relatively poor properties. The thermalmechanical shearing devulcanization can effectively break the three-dimension crosslinked network structure and restore a certain extent of plasticity and processability. In this work, reclaimed rubber (RR) was obtained by thermalmechanical shearing devulcanization as a potential filler for natural rubber. The vulcanization process, mechanical properties, microstructure of RR/natural rubber (NR) compounds composites were investigated. It was found that the NR vulcanizates containing 30 phr of RR as filler showed the higher tensile strength and elongation at break. Microstructural characterization analysis on a sample containing 30 phr of RR revealed the existence of strong interactions between the natural rubber matrix and RR, suggesting that RR and NR appeared to be wellmatched, undergoing simultaneous curing and forming a continuous phase.