Abstract

Use of Ultrasound in Processes of Rubber Reclaiming

O.V.Abramov, O.M.Gradov (Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of RAS, Moscow, Russia); Zh.V.Perlina, D.R.Razgon (Research Institute of Tire Industry, Moscow, Russia)

e-mail: LUTT@IGIC.RAS.RU

In the whole world a considerable attention is paid to development of the processes of the recycling of tires that are out of use and are not subject to restoring repair. From technical and economic point of view, it is most appropriate to obtain from spent tires a rubber reclaim, which is a raw material for production of mechanical rubber articles of wide assortment. In the present work the effect of power ultrasound on the processes of rubber devulcanization was studied. Experiments were performed with the use of an ultrasonic setup consisting of an electric generator of power 4.0 kW which operates in the frequency range 25 . 1.5 kHz, a magnetostrictive transducer manufactured from iron-cobalt alloy (permendur) and a vibration system that provides vibrations with displacement amplitude up to 15 mm at the radiating surface of a waveguide with diameter 65 mm. The samples of rubber crumb from spent tires (with particle size not more than 0.5 mm) which were prepared in three different forms were subjected to the treatment: a) pure rubber crumb from spent tires; b) rubber crumb from spent tires with 10 wt % plasticizer; c) rubber crumb from spent tires after treatment on laboratory rolls during 10 minutes. In experiments the influence of the regimes of ultrasonic treatment (vibration amplitude, treatment time, static pressure applied to a sample) on the composition, structure and properties of obtained rubber reclaim was investigated. The experiments have shown that the effect of ultrasound is most effective in the case of preliminary mechanical treatment of rubber crumb in the presence of plasticizer, as a result of which monolithic rubber mass is formed.

Section : 11