Published : 2014-02-28

The influence of screw configuration and screw speed of co-rotating twin screw extruder on the properties of products obtained by thermomechanical reclaiming of ground tire rubber

Abstract

The results of our investigations on the process of continuous thermomechanical reclaiming of ground tire rubber (GTR) carried out using a twin screw extruder are presented. We used a co-rotating twin screw extruder with a special configuration of plasticizing unit, enabling generation of considerable shear forces. The influence of screw configuration and screw speed on breaking of chemical crosslink bonds contained in ground tire rubber are characterized by extrusion parameters, the acetone extract content, the content of the soluble fraction, the degree of reclaiming and the crosslink density of the obtained products. The effect of a secondary curing on the mechanical properties (tensile strength, elongation at break, hardness, resilience and abrasion resistance) of the obtained materials was also determined. It has been established that the thermomechanical reclaiming process depends on shear forces acting on the rubber particles, while the degree of reclaiming increase with the increasing screw speed. A change in screw configuration significantly affects the processing of ground tire rubber during reclaiming process. For example, preliminary pulverization of the fine rubber particles in the first zone of barrel facilitates further processing in the twin screw extruder, which is beneficial in order to decrease the screw torque and the energy consumption in the production of reclaimed rubber. Thermogravimetry analysis (TG/DTG) showed that thermal stability of obtained reclaimed GTR depends strongly on the screw configuration.


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Formela, K., Cysewska, M., & Haponiuk, J. (2014). The influence of screw configuration and screw speed of co-rotating twin screw extruder on the properties of products obtained by thermomechanical reclaiming of ground tire rubber. Polimery, 59(2), 170–177. https://doi.org/10.14314/polimery.2014.170