A comparative study for the main properties of silica and carbon black Filled bagasse-styrene butadiene rubber composites

A comparative study has been done to investigate the effect of carbon black (CB) and fumed silica (Si) on the physico-mechanical and thermal properties of Bagasse/styrene-butadiene rubber (B-SBR) composites. Based on the incorporation of 25 phr from natural ground bagasse powder (GBP) as a supplement reinforcing filler in styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) vulcanizates, two identical sets of formulations have been prepared using different concentrations (20, 40, 60 and 80 phr) of carbon black and silica as the main reinforcing fillers in SBR composites. The ground bagasse powder (GBP) employed in this work, has a selective grain size distribution ranging from about 20–180 μm. As well, 2.5 phr of maleic anhydride (MA) was incorporated to improve the interfacial adhesion between SBR and bagasse. The distinguishing effect of different fillers on the rheological properties was clearly established. Tensile strength, elongation at break, modulus at 100% elongation (M 100), hardness (Shore A), abrasion loss, degree of swelling, as well as, thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) of the rubber vulcanizates were studied. The prepared samples were morphologically analysed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The tensile strength and M 100% values of carbon black-filled compounds were obviously higher than those of the silica filled ones. In addition, hardness, wear and swelling properties were improved more and more by increasing the filler content. Whereas, the Si filled B/SBR showed a decreasing trend in elongation at break values but with an evidently higher plateau than that of CB filled ones. Overall, the CB filled vulcanizates recorded dominant mechanical properties compared to the Si filled vucanizates. On the other hand, both fillers offered a noticeable improvement in thermal stability, but with a preference favored for the silica filled compounds. Furthermore, the findings for SEM were found to be in agreement with the observed mechanical properties. This study summarizes a detailed discussion of the emerging green technologies for tyre production and depicted comprehensive data from the available literature.