Rubber Mixing

This report describes the current state of the art in mixing in the rubber industry from a practical and essentially technological viewpoint. An additional indexed section containing several hundred abstracts from the Rapra Polymer Library database provides useful references for further reading.

Manufacturing rubber products requires the use of many additives. Therefore, mixing of the additives with the rubber is a very important step in the processing of rubber. There has been extensive research to try to understand the relationships between the formulation and the properties of the final product. In an industry with more than 100 years' accumulated history and a number of possible combinations of ingredients in the rubber formulation, there is an enormous amount of knowledge. However, this knowledge exists in fragments scattered as in-house 'know-how' among manufacturers and in the personal experience of the individual operators. This book organises this fragmented knowledge into a coherent whole based on scientific principles. This book is written for students, teachers and those in the rubber industry, who wish to acquire a scientific viewpoint of mixing. Last but not least it is written for the researchers in this field. With the latter in mind, subjects for future research are indicated wherever appropriate. With varied readers in mind, each chapter is written in such a way that it may be read independently from others.

Despite mature applications, advanced technology, and high volume, rubber compounding has never had a book of its own. Today, emerging applications such as tire reclamation and smoke-resistant cables combine with an industry push into engineering materials to create new kinds of compounds with new quality control problems. The Mixing of Rubber has been developed over several years in conjunction with the Farrel Corp./Connecticut Rubber Group course to educate the hands-on compounder and the end user as well. It covers machinery, mixing, process control, quality control, plant operations and mixing advice for specific compounds. Like the course, the book assumes no prior knowledge of rubber compounding but leads the technologist through the process from mix procedure to test.

The objectives of rubber compounding may be essentially defined as providing optimised performance and processability, generally at minimum cost, by the incorporation of non-rubber ingredients. Optimised performance in this context refers not only to mechanical properties but also, for example, resistance to bacteria or particular chemicals. In some applications a rubber may also need to be coloured, or bonded to another material, and further ingredients may be required. For many years, rubber compounding was largely empirical and frequently described as a black art. Today it is practised predominantly on the basis of scientific principles elucidated over years of study and is still the subject of intensive research. In this new report Claude Hepburn reviews the following range of compounding ingredients, considering the range of materials available, their particular actions and recent interesting advances: Process and extender oils; Process aids and surfactants; Coupling agents and adhesion promoters; Fire retardants, bactericides and blowing agents, colourants and odourants. An additional indexed section containing several hundred abstracts from the Polymer Library provides many more examples of novel materials and their applications.

This revised and expanded single-source reference analyzes all compounding material classes of dry rubber compounds, such as carbon blacks, platicizers and age resisters, integrating detailed information on how elastomers are built up. The work provides practical compounding tips on how to avoid oil or antioxidant bloom, how to adjust electrical conductivity and how to meet volume swell requirements.;This second edition: provides material on government regulations regarding rubber waste; presents current insights into the fast-growing polymer technology of thermoplastic elastomers; discusses the ramifications of the commercial availability of epoxidized natural rubber; and offers a comprehensive tabular chart on the properties of polymers.

Highlighting more than a decade of research, this one-of-a-kind reference reviews the production, processing, and characteristics of a wide range of materials utilized in the modern tire and rubber industry. Rubber Compounding investigates the chemistry and modification of raw materials, elastomers, and material compounds for optimal formulation an