The effect of carbon black on the curing and mechanical properties of natural rubber/ acrylonitrile- butadiene rubber composites

The present work investigates the effect of the amount of carbon black on curing and mechanical properties such as tensile strength, elongation at break, hardness and abrasion resistance of the natural rubber (NR)/ acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR) blend. For that purpose, a blend composed of 65% NR and 35% NBR filled with different content of carbon black N330 was used. The curing results indicate that the viscosity and the crosslink density of rubber composites increase and the scorch and curing times decrease with increasing the filler content. Mechanical properties such as tensile modulus and hardness of the CB filled NR/NBR blend were remarkably improved, indicating the inherent reinforcing potential of CB. Regarding tensile strength and abrasion resistance, they increase with the addition of carbon black, up to 50 phr. After that, these properties decrease slightly with filleraddition.