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The Effect of Cure Conditions on the Strength of Ebonite Rubber Network
Abstract
Although ebonite has been discovered for a long time, its applications were still limited to some household products. Recently, ebonite rubber has become of interest, especially for structural applications due to its high and adjustable strength and rigidity. The rigidity can be enhanced by several folds by utilizing appropriate curing conditions. In this study, we investigate the effect of curing conditions on the mechanical properties of ebonite at various cure time. Here, the crosslink densities were determined qualitatively both before and after compression cycles to investigate the change in crosslink networks.
... The crosslink density of the rubber vulcanizate was determined on the basis of rapid solvent-swelling measurements by saturating thin pieces of vulcanized rubber chips in toluene for 78 h at 30 • C. The assessment of the crosslink density was done by using the Flory-Rehner equation [17]. The typical Flory-Rehner equation is shown below. ...
The adsorption of Hg(II) by natural rubber chips was investigated. First, the effect of chip size (5 mmx5 mm and 10 mmx10 mm) on the adsorption kinetics was studied. The pseudo-second-order modeling was found to explain the kinetics well. The smaller chips had higher adsorption rate so they were used for the rest of the research. Next the effects of sulfur, zinc oxide and carbon black on the adsorption capacity of Hg(II) at equilibrium conditions were investigated. The effect of sulfur was studied through different standard vulcanizing systems. The amount of zinc oxide was varied to be 3, 4 and 5 part per hundred parts of rubber (phr) while the carbon black (N-330) loading was varied to be 0, 30 and 50 phr, respectively. It was found that adsorption capacity increased with the degree of crosslink density, generated by sulfur reacting with rubber molecules. In addition, the adsorption capacities of various amounts of zinc oxide corresponded with their crosslink densities while the addition of carbon black seemed to obstruct Hg(II) adsorption.
The effects of high-temperature curing and overcuring on the cure characteristics, crosslink structure, physical properties and dynamic mechanical properties (DMPs) of gum and carbon black (N330) filled natural rubber (NR) vulcanizates cured with conventional (CV), semi-efficient (SEV) and efficient (EV) cure systems, which have about the same total crosslink densities under a moderate curing temperature of 150°C, were investigated. The gum NR vulcanizates cured with CV, SEV and EV curing systems have about the same glass transition temperature (Tg) and tanδ values below the temperature of about 0°C, but showed some apparent differences in the tanδ values increasing in the order CV
A natural rubber (NR) gum mix with a conventional N-cyclohexyl-2-benzothiazylsulphenamide (CBS) accelerated sulphur system (0.5:2.5 CBS/S) was vulcanized at temperatures from 140°C to 200°C. The influence of cure temperature on (a) the chemical crosslink density, (b) the distribution of crosslink types, (c) the extent of sulphidic main-chain modifications, and (d) the zinc sulphide formation was investigated. Results show that elevated cure temperatures produce a network with a lower crosslink density, in particular a lower polysulphidic crosslink density. The formation of intramolecular sulphidic groups and zinc sulphide increases with increasing temperatures. The possibility of chain scission during vulcanization was examined by a quantitative analysis of the sol-gel data. Less than 1 site of scission per 100 crosslinked isoprene units was established in the temperature range of 140–200°C. The network results can be satisfactorily correlated with the physical properties of a tyre tread mix of NR as reported in Part 1. Mechanistic interpretations are made to account for the network results.