Investigating the Effect of Silica Complex and Zinc Oxide on Rubber Curing

In this paper we discuss the effect of silica filler content on zinc oxide in curing process and the amount of Zn absorbed in the presence of silica gel in atomic absorption spectroscopy instrument. For this purpose the compounds have been made up of the mixture of stearin-butadiene, butadiene rubbers and other components with different contents of silica. Considering the results from rehometer test and the amount of zinc oxide absorbed in atomic absorption spectroscopy instrument for different amounts of silica, 4 new compounds have been introduced containing different amounts of zinc oxide. After doing some tests like mechanical tests (tensile strength, elongation, stiffness and Abrasion) the new compounds have been added to the solvent mixture for atomic absorption analysis. The results show that the maximum zinc absorption happens with the minimum silica content because a stable complex formed between zinc and silica gel results in preventing zinc oxide from taking part in curing process. Besides that adding the fluoric acid solvent for solving the silica gel will result in considerable increase in Zn absorption. The results of different analysis like mooney, Tension of rubber, hardness, abrasion resistance and Reometer tests show that increasing the silica content causes the curing process be slower and less cross links will be formed because of the increase in the amount of zinc oxide absorbed. In what follows studying the amount of zinc absorbed in atomic absorption spectroscopy instrument will confirm the absorption of zinc oxide by silica and forming a stable complex.