Initial tests have demonstrated that wood flour (WF) blends exceptionally well with a wide range of commonly used rubbers, including natural rubber, styrene rubber, acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber, butadiene rubber and isoprene rubber. Effective reinforcement of rubber materials depends heavily on the fine dispersion of the filler. Combining WF with a rubber matrix is an innovative way of creating sustainable composite materials. The correct modification of the wood surface is key to success, as this allows for good dispersion, high adhesion and balanced mechanical properties. Thanks to these technologies, there are now many potential applications in the automotive industry, construction, footwear, and sealing and damping elements. In this study, WF obtained as a by-product of wood pellet manufacturing was used as the filler. Furthermore, the interaction between the filler and the rubber matrix is crucial in enhancing reinforcement, whether through chemical bonding or physical interactions. Therefore, modification of the WF is necessary. This paper deals with the incorporation of modified WF of different fractions into a polymer matrix and examines how this effects the rheological behaviour and mechanical parameters of polymer blends and vulcanizates compared to polymer blends filled with unmodified WF. The measured results suggest that selecting the correct fraction of modified WF can lead to an improvement in the resulting properties of polymer blends.

PDF (Download Full text)

Download Citation (XML)