Development of rubber compounds with environmentally friendly fillers, using Design of Experiments

PABLO SALVATORI; CARLOS E. BOSCHETTI

Mar del Plata

Simposio; XVI Latin-American Polymer Symposium; 2018

NTEMA (UNMdP-CONICET)

The development of new, ecological, elastomeric materials is under constant study, and such challenge can be approached from different points of view. An example is the replacement of fillers currently used in rubber compounds by others that reach the same properties, but in turn are environmentally friendly.The design of a rubber compound with a specific end-use, replacing one of the components of the formulation with a new one, is a complicated task in the field of rubber technology. The properties of a compound depend in a complex way both, on the materials and on the processing operations. Also, the variability of the required performance tests could be important. For these reasons, the successful development of a compound requires a systematic work, the key being the use of an experimental design (DoE). The implementation of a statistical design of experiments allows selecting the optimum process conditions for the system under study, reducing time and costs. [1]In the present work, the replacement of carbon black by ground soybean husk as an ecological reinforcing filler is evaluated.