Mechanical and thermal properties of rubber composites reinforced by zinc methacrylate and carbon black

Zinc methacrylate (ZMA) and carbon black (CB) are incorporated into natural rubber/butadiene rubber matrix by direct mixing in a Banbury mixer. Tensile and tear tests showed that CB has a great reinforcing effect on rubber matrix. The results show that the amount of ZMA also plays an important role in mechanical properties. The addition of ZMA resulted in a significant increase of the optimum cure time even at lower loading. Incorporation of ZMA improved mechanical properties, such as tensile modulus and cure reinforcing parameter. The extraordinary improvement in properties is due to the formation of covalent and ionic crosslink. The composite containing only CB shows higher elongation at break, superior tensile strength, and tear strength than ZMA‐filled composites. Reinforcing effect of different composites has also been evaluated using different theoretical model. It has been observed that blowout time became slower and blowout temperature became higher as the ZMA content of the specimen increased. This represents multiple interactions between ZMA and rubber matrix. On the basis of the experimental results, possible mechanisms for reinforcement and microstructure of ZMA/rubber composites have been proposed. Both ZMA and CB provide better thermal stability especially for the composites, where the highest reinforcement effect is observed by mechanical analysis. POLYM. COMPOS., 2012. © 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers