Natural rubber/styrene butadiene rubber/recycled nitrile glove (NR/SBR/rNBRg) ternary blend: Tensile properties & morphology

Abstract

Recycling waste rubber products by utilising them in rubber blends had provided the simplest and most cost-effective ways in solving several environmental issues regarding the abundance of scrap rubbers. Discarded nitrile gloves, in which the defects and rejects from the nitrile gloves production were used in this study. Ternary blends of natural rubber/styrene butadiene rubber/recycled nitrile glove (NR/SBR/rNBRg) were prepared. The effects of blend ratio (50/50/00, 50/40/10, 50/30/20, 50/20/30, 50/10/40, 50/00/50, 40/50/10, 30/50/20, 20/50/30, 10/50/40 and 00/50/50 (phr/phr/phr)) on tensile properties and morphology of NR/SBR/rNBRg ternary blends were studied. The result indicates that the NR/SBR/rNBRg ternary blends exhibited a decrease in tensile properties as the rNBRg content increased. However, the optimum tensile properties of the blends exhibited at 50/30/20 blend ratio. The resilience and crosslink density of the blends decreased with addition of rNBRg while the hardness increased when more rNBRg content added. However, significant drop in hardness can be observed at 40 phr of rNBRg content, due to the random dispersion of rNBRg on the surface of the test pieces. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis indicated that, poor attachment of rNBRg particles into the blends as rNBRg content increased.