Loading Silica for Supporting Carbon Black Filler to Prevent Degradation Natural Rubber Caused DME

¹ Chemical Engineering Department FT-UI, UI New Campius, Depok, 16424, Indonesia
² Chemical Engineering Department FT-Unsri, Kampus Indralaya, Indonesia
³ Indonesian Rubber Research Institute, Jl. Salak 16151 Bogor, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: sasep@che.ui.ac.id

Abstract

DME (Dimethyl Ether) is the future environmental friendly fuel. Some parts of equipment for transporting the DME are using rubber as a hoses or seals. This research is about the using of natural rubber for those applications. The influential part in the manufacture of natural rubber products are fillers. The use of filler depends on what the product will be made. DME nature have high permeability and easy to absorb into a rubber and plastic. In such of that, the rubber or plastic could be damaged and not durable. In order to determine the type of degradation, the number of samples were immersed in liquid DME. The ratio of the loading of carbon black/silica filler in natural rubber was varied. DME causes two types of degradation, namely absorption and extraction. The addition of filler composition can reduce the absorption and extraction, which can cause a reduction in the percentage decrease in the value of the change in mass and a decrease in tensile strength. On the other hand, the addition of filler composition will increase the changes of hardness. The higher filler loading, will increase the crosslink density and lower scorch time. The presence of silica further is to enhance the crosslink density as well as to lower scorch time. Therefore, the presence of silica affect on the decreasing of the swelling level and shrinking. In general, the presence of silica filler in the mixture will be slightly lowering the tensile strength, but not affecting the elongation at break. The presence of silica before and after soaking with DME will increase hardness.