Characteristics and properties of activated carbon from bamboo filled Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR) vulcanizates

Abstract

Carbonized bamboo and bamboo activated carbon (AC) were prepared via carbonization process and chemical activation process using potassium hydroxide (KOH) as activating agent. Carbonization process was conducted at different carbonization temperature (250, 450 and 650 ºC) with heating rate of 5 and 15 ºC/min. As carbonization temperature increased, the percentage of char yield decreased, however the carbon content increased. The BET surface area of carbonized bamboo increased with increasing carbonization temperature and more pores were created as shown in SEM micrographs. Carbonized bamboo produced at 650 ºC with heating rate 15 ºC/min showed the highest potential to produce bamboo AC, subsequently used as filler in SBR compounds owing to its higher carbon content with higher BET surface area. Next, carbonized bamboo and bamboo activated carbon filled SBR (SBR-CGS and SBR-AC) compounds with varying filler loading from 10 to 50 part per hundred rubber (phr) were prepared. The effects of filler loading on the cure characteristics, physical and tensile properties were determined. Results showed that the improvement in cure characteristics for both SBR-CGS and SBR-AC vulcanizates. The physical properties of both filled SBR vulcanizates improved in terms of increment in hardness and decrement in resilience as the filler loading increased. Besides, the tensile properties for both SBR-CGS and SBRAC vulcanizates also enhanced which the tensile strength and tensile modulus as well as elongation at break (EB) increased. The morphology studies showed that both filler dispersed homogeneously in SBR compounds, resulted in good filler-rubber interaction and consequently improved the tensile properties. Comparing both filled SBR vulcanizates, it showed that SBR-AC vulcanizates have better properties than SBR-CGS vulcanizates due to the porosity of bamboo AC filler. SBR-AC vulcanizate with 50 phr of bamboo AC exhibited optimum properties and was selected to be added with transpolyoctylene (TOR) as compatibilizer. Incorporation of TOR into SBR-AC vulcanizates showed slightly increment in tensile strength and reduction in hardness and tensile modulus as the compatibilizer loading increased from 2 to 8 phr.