The dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) of crosslinked natural rubber nanocomposites reinforced with cellulosic nanoparticles obtained from lignocelluloses biomass (coconut husk, bamboo culm and cotton linters) has been investigated and compared with carbon black filled natural rubber vulcanizate. The crosslinked natural rubber matrix based composites were produced by melt intercalation process using two roll mixing mill and vulcanized in a thermally regulated hydraulic press. DMA were carried out in order to obtain their viscoelastic thermo-mechanical spectrum. Results showed decrease in storage modulus (E') with increasing temperature while glass transition temperatures (Tg) obtained from temperature dependence loss tangent curves were -35.84, 37.30, -34.61, -35.27 and -34.29 o C for neat-natural rubber (NR), natural rubber reinforced carbon black (NR-CB), natural rubber reinforced bamboo cellulosic particles (NR-BNC), natural rubber reinforced coconut husk cellulosic particles (NR-CHNC) and natural rubber reinforced cotton linter particles (NR-CLNC) respectively. The composite of NR-CHNC was also found to give a higher damping factor of 1.563 compared to NR-CB which gave a value of 1.518. nanocomposites reinforced with cellulosic nanoparticles can provide adequate synergy for loading bearing and vibration isolation application.
The assessment of the durability of twelve cylindrical samples of black cotton soil, a well-known problem soil, stabilized with a combination of 4%lime and 16% sawdust ash were carried out in laboratory using the methods of [1] and that recommended by [2] and [3]. The results showed that the unconfined compressive strength of the samples under varying curing and soaking conditions ranged from 1217kPa to 265kPa while the durability indices were 59.51% and 59% respectively. Thus, the stabilizers have elevated the otherwise non-durable soil into the marginally durable zone.
This research focuses on the use of cellulosic nanoparticles obtained from coconut husk, bamboo and cotton linter as reinforcing phase in natural rubber composites with the objective to study the effect of these cellulosic particles and loading ratio on the mechanical, thermal and morphological properties of the resultant composites. Vulcanized natural rubber composites were prepared using cellulosic nanoparticles obtained from bamboo (BNC), coconut husk (CHNC), cotton linter (CLNC) and carbon black (CB) as reinforcing material/fillers. These reinforcing material/fillers were compounded alongside with vulcanizing agents using two roll mixing mill and subsequently cured in order to introduce crosslinks into rubber chains. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) revealed that the free volume holes in the neat rubber were drastically reduced by incorporation of these nanoparticles into the rubber matrix. The differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) study showed a slight shift in the melting temperature of bamboo based composite from 360 to 350 o C while thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA) showed that the incorporation of bamboo and cotton linter based nanoparticles shifted the thermal stability of neat rubber matrix from 266 to 299 and 300 o C respectively. Coconut husk based composites showed a trend of increase in tensile strength from 1.8 to 3.82 MPa with filler loading of 0 to 25 weight %, while bamboo, cotton linter and carbon black based nanocomposites gave their highest values of 3.16, 3.92 and 4.50 MPa respectively at filler content of 30 weight %.Cellulosic nanoparticles obtained from biomass studied in this experiment can replace or serve as alternative materials to carbon black especially in moderate load bearing rubber articles
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