Abstract
Carbon black (CB) is usually used to reinforce rubbers such as styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR). CB has sustainability and human health issues owing to its energy-intensive production process. Focusing on developing sustainable alternatives, bi-modal distributed cellulose fibers (CF) were used to partially replace CB. Cellulose fibers were pre-dispersed and surface modified and mixed with SBR matrices using internal and open rubber mill mixers. The properties of the prepared samples were measured and compared with CB/SBR counterparts. This study highlights the combined effects of CF bi-modality, surface modification, and pre-dispersion on dispersion quality, viscoelastic, curing, and mechanical properties. Our results showed that surface modification of bi-modal CFs and their pre-dispersion promoted dispersion by 15% and 12%, respectively. In comparison with CB as a common additive in SBR composites, the SBR samples filled with pre-dispersed modified bi-modal CF resulted in better dispersion, up to a 24% increase in tensile strength, a 50% improvement of modulus, and a 27% rise in tear strength. Given the sustainability feature of CFs, our results confirmed that the combined effects of pre-dispersed modified bi-modal CFs could be an industrially viable, cost-effective alternative to partially replace CB in SBR composites where the gains in strength are obtained by NFCs, and micro-fibrillated fibers are used to replace the additional NFCs for unrequired excessive strength.
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Acknowledgments
This work was performed, in part, at Lakehead University and Toronto Metropolitan University. Parts of the experiments were conducted in the R&D Facility, AirBoss of America, located in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
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The authors acknowledge the support by MITACS and the industrial partnership for research with Performance BioFilaments Inc. Materials were provided by Performance BioFilaments Inc. and AirBoss of America. The authors also acknowledge the support from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Lakehead University, Toronto Metropolitan University, Ontario Research Fund (ORF) and Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) programs for supporting this research.
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VTL: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Writing, Visualization. GM: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation. GF: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation. EB: Conceptualization, Investigation, Supervision, Writing, Review.
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The authors have no known competing financial interests that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Heim, Hans P. Feldmann, Maik.
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Lashkar, V.T., Minhas, G., Fisher, G. et al. Production of greener styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) composites through partial substitution of carbon black with bi-modal cellulose fibers. Cellulose 30, 9485–9499 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05463-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05463-7