Reclaimed rubber refers to waste vulcanized rubber that has undergone physical and chemical processes such as crushing, heating, and mechanical treatment, transforming it from an elastic state into rubber with certain plasticity and viscosity, capable of vulcanizing. It can replace raw rubber and be used alone as raw rubber in the production of various rubber products, effectively reducing raw material costs. Reclaimed rubber is a recycled resource from waste rubber, so why can it be used alone as raw rubber?
1. Why can reclaimed rubber be used alone as raw rubber?
In rubber product manufacturing, there are two basic criteria for determining the use of raw rubber for manufacturing: plasticity and the ability to be evenly blended with carbon black, zinc oxide, softeners, and other additives; It has vulcanization activity; after adding a vulcanization system, it can reform crosslinked structures and cure into molding.
Processed waste vulcanized rubber into reclaimed rubber undergoes physical and chemical processes such as crushing, pyrolysis, and mechanical shearing, breaking some cross-linked bonds and molecular chains, breaking the rigid elastic structure, restoring the activity of rubber molecular chains, achieving stable plasticity and adhesion, retaining reactive activity that allows vulcanization again, and meeting the basic characteristics of raw rubber; Therefore, reclaimed rubber can be used alone as raw rubber and supplied to rubber product production lines.
2. Advantages of using reclaimed rubber alone as raw rubber
Producing rubber products entirely from reclaimed rubber offers the following eight advantages:
(1) Cheap, with a rubber content of about 50%, and contains large amounts of reusable antioxidants, softeners, zinc oxide, and carbon black. Generally, the tensile strength of reclaimed rubber can reach over 9-10MPa.
(2) Good plasticity, easily mixed with raw rubber and additives. Therefore, mixing with reclaimed rubber not only ensures uniform quality, but also saves labor and reduces power consumption.
(3) Using reclaimed rubber can reduce heat generation during processes such as mixing, hot mixing, calendering, and extrusion, thereby avoiding scorching caused by excessive adhesive temperatures, which is especially important for compounds with high carbon black content.
(4) Compound mixed with reclaimed rubber has good flowability, resulting in fast rolling and extrusion speeds. The shrinkage during calendering and the expansion during extrusion are low, resulting in fewer appearance defects in semi-finished products.
(5) Compound mixed with reclaimed rubber has low thermoplasticity, making it easier to maintain its original shape during molding and vulcanization.
(6) Fast vulcanization rate, low tendency for vulcanization to revert.
(7) It can improve the oil resistance and acid and alkali resistance of the products.
(8) Good aging resistance, improving the product's resistance to natural aging and thermal oxygen aging.
3. Common applications of reclaimed rubber in rubber products
There are many varieties of reclaimed rubber, commonly including tire reclaimed rubber, latex reclaimed rubber, nitrile reclaimed rubber, EPDM reclaimed rubber, and butyl reclaimed rubber. In the rubber products industry, it can be used alone as raw rubber E6LYY316 or combined with natural rubber, styrene-butadiene rubber, nitrile rubber, EPDM rubber, butyl rubber, neoprene rubber, etc., with wide applications: including automobile tires, motorcycle tires, bicycle tires, rubber hoses, tape products, rubber sheets, pads, gaskets, shoe soles, and more. Generally, 100 parts of tire reclaimed rubber can replace 30 parts of raw rubber.
When using reclaimed rubber instead of raw rubber to produce various rubber products, it is essential to select appropriate reclaimed rubber based on the product's usage environment and physical requirements, reasonably determine the application ratio of reclaimed rubber, and reduce raw material costs while ensuring product quality.
Exclusive original article [commercial authorization] reprint, excerpt and excerpt in any form are prohibited without written authorization. Focus on Hongyun rubber: learn the process formula and raw material technology of producing rubber products from recycled rubber to help you reduce costs and increase profits