The effect of treated and untreated Citronella filler loading on curing characteristic and mechanical properties of NR/SBR blends

Abstract

In this research, the effect of treated and untreated of Citronella filler loading from 10 phr until 50 phr on curing characteristic and mechanical properties of NR/SBR blends were studied. The Citronella leaves were collected and milled followed by grinded and sieved to appropriate size. For curing characteristic, cure time and scorch time decreases as the filler loading increases for both treated and untreated series while delta torque for treated series is decreases as filler loading increases due to surface modification. For mechanical properties, at 20 phr loading, it showed highest tensile strength for treated and untreated which is 7.64 MPa and 7.53 MPa respectively and strength of treated series is higher than untreated series. The elongation at break for both treated and untreated series decreases as the filler loading increases. The M100 and M300 of treated series is lower than untreated series while hardness of treated series is higher than untreated series at all phr loadings. As delta torque is interrelated with crosslink density, the crosslink density for treated series is decreases compare to untreated series as filler loading increases based on the Flory-Rehner Equation. For moisture test, the water absorption uptake for both treated and untreated series increased gradually as filler loading increased.