Assessment Of Modified Leather Waste On Cure Characteristics Of Natural Rubber Compound

Abstract

Leather waste (buffing) were sourced, cleaned and modified. The modification revealed improved filler characteristics for both treated leather waste (TLW) and carbonized leather waste (CLW) in terms of, bulk density, moisture content, lignin content, cellulose content, hemicelluloses content, thermal stability and FTIR respectively. The results obtained were compared with carbon black (CB) filled vulcanizates. The cure characteristics of the compounded rubber showed improved scorch time (TLW; 2.59 - 2.02 min, CLW; 2.05 - 1.61 min, CB; 1.78 - 1.19 min) and cure time (TLW; 6.04 - 5.56 min, CLW; 5.93 - 4.51 min, CB; 4.77 - 4.45 min) decreased with filler loading while the cure rate index (TLW; 1.27 - 1.53 min -1, CLW; 1.31 - 1.65 min -1, CB; 1.40 - 1.74 min -1), minimum torque (TLW; 4.10 - 5.08 kg-cm, CLW; 4.76 - 5.53 kg-cm, CB; 5.00 - 5.97 kg-cm) and maximum torque (TLW; 16.70 - 25.08 kg-cm, CLW; 19.44 - 26.19 kg-cm, CB; 20.04 - 27.95 kg-cm) increased with filler loadings from 10 phr – 50 phr. The research results showed that CLW and TLW can serve as alternative to CB for the production of polymer based articles such as shoe soles, floor-mats, oil seals, shock mounts etc. for some engineering applications.