Reverse Engineering of Rubber Products in Science and Practice

A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Analysis and Characterization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 May 2024 | Viewed by 2723

Special Issue Editors

Centre of Polymer Systems, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Tř. Tomáše Bati 5678, 76001 Zlín, Czech Republic
Interests: rubber composition; compounding ingredients; spectroscopic analysis; thermal analysis; chemical analysis; quantification of compounding ingredients; recycling of rubber products; powder rubber; development of new rubber products, pyrolysis
1. Assoc. Prof. Dr.-Ing., PRL Polymer Research Lab., s.r.o., Nad Ovcirnou 3685, 76001 Zlín, Czech Republic
2. Assoc. Prof. Dr.-Ing., Centre of Polymer Systems, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, tř. Tomáše Bati, 5678 Zlín, Czech Republic
Interests: rubber material; testing; fatigue, fracture, friction and wear characterization of elastomers; characterisation of crack initiation and propagation in elastomers; development of advanced testing methodologies, hardware and equipment; engineering applications; rubber compound development
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the evolution of human beings, their acute interest in the scientific world, made them think deep about the causes and effects of various natural states and happenings. In the process, nature was investigated through the minds of humans as cryptograms to be solved, a very reflection of a reverse engineering process on the existing observable phenomena. The concept has been well practiced in the materials science domain also, to understand the material composition and the processes applied to produce products of commercial and sometimes purely scientific interest.

Ranking amongst the materials as one of the most mysterious to a layman, many of the different rubber products may appear to be completely identical. This impression can be traced back to the fact that rubber products are predominantly of a black colour, and feel almost similar to the touch. However, after little more inspection, substantiated through various analytical techniques, it is quite obvious that each rubber is different. One may be soft, whereas another may be hard, another brittle whereas the next one tough. Some may show incredible flexibility, or conversely, high plasticity. Stated in another way, the spectrum of properties encountered with rubber products far surpasses those of many other materials. However, all the rubbers bear a fact in common. They are irreplaceable in their original applications with other materials due to their ability to show viscoelasticity or damping.

Therefore, they are used especially in cyclically dynamically loaded applications with respect to the required viscoelastic properties. That is why every rubber is unique. Typical examples are synthetic and natural covalently cross-linked rubbers integrated into automobile tyres, or other applications such as driving or conveyor belts, seismic isolators, fuel system hoses, seals, turbo charger hoses, cooling system hoses, engine bushing, spring pads and many more.

Recently, from the environmental point of view, a growing body of scientific research is linking tyre wear to microplastic pollution, and scientists have put forward a relevant question—which components in rubber can prevent wear and increase the life of such a product, while simultaneously reducing pollution?

In principle, it is not possible to produce identical rubber products repeatedly, even if a completely identical composition has been used for its production. Each has its personal fingerprint, and this is non-transferable. In order to be able to decipher this fingerprint, it is necessary to perform a comprehensive analysis by applying reverse engineering.

This is used in both research laboratories and the research and development wings of companies, either to get an idea about specifications or to gain knowledge about compositions of the products in terms of elastomers and other compounding ingredients such as crosslinking agents, accelerators, fillers, antidegradants, plasticizers and miscellaneous chemicals. Scientific principles are developed and followed for the analysis and reconstruction of a specified product, and even to understand the compositions of waste rubber products.

Once a successful reverse engineering has been accomplished, then it can be of great importance in various application fields. For example, the controlled pyrolysis of waste rubber products, such as waste tyres, can be used as a source to obtain high-value-added products such as pyro-oil, carbon black and steel. It can also be helpful in generating heat, which in turn, may be used for the production of electricity. This approach is considered to be economically viable only if the waste rubber product contains more rubber and processing oil over ingredients such as cheapening filler, which includes China clay. Thus, reverse engineering is useful to ascertain the compounding ingredients in such a waste rubber product prior to using it as a feedstock for the production of energy.

In another example, the collected abraded rubber dust worn-off of tyres may be subjected to efficient reverse engineering to understand the amount of unreacted zinc oxide and para-phenylene diamines present as compounding ingredients, thus helping to decide whether such washed away waste satisfies the permissible threshold considered to be safe for marine lives. If not, then stringent measures must be adopted to discard such wastes.

Innumerable examples highlighting the great importance and helpfulness of the reverse engineering of rubber products, assisting in such areas as health and medicine, energy and recycling, and pollution control, are to be found in the various published literature.

In general, the scope lies in understanding existing rubber compounds chemically, with the objective of allowing the estimation of the cost and a tentative alteration in the compounding to produce cost-effective products, satisfying and, if possible, improving upon the already existing required properties of the reverse-engineered products that are targeted for contemplated end use. Additionally, the importance in understanding products from the environmental point of view has already been highlighted. Finally, reverse engineering applied on a failed rubber product in service against a known formulation from where such a product was manufactured can be effectively applied to estimate the redistribution of the non-reactive compounding ingredients present, which may be an operative way to understand the mechanical nature of such a failure.

While experimenting, sometimes disappointing failures may overshadow hope, but that can never stop the desire to start afresh. Great science is often not achieved with the first attempt. Indeed, we learn from our mistakes, and use what we learn to improve, innovate and create.  

This “Special Issue” will highlight original articles and reviews that describe the systematic approach to the chemical reverse engineering of rubber products, using such physical and chemical means as infrared spectroscopy, chromatography, thermal and thermomechanical analysis, and acetone extraction, to name a few. Submissions describing very new analytical techniques and developments on new and unique grounds are also highly encouraged as potential perspectives on future trends and challenges in this field.

Dr. Sanjoy Datta
Dr. Radek Stoček
Guest Editors

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 5539 KiB  
Article
Parametrical Function Describing Influences of the Redistribution of Incorporated Oil for Rupture Process Reconstruction in Rubber
by Sanjoy Datta, Radek Stoček and Evghenii Harea
Polymers 2023, 15(6), 1363; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym15061363 - 09 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 784
Abstract
The present work is focused on finding (i) the tearing energy at rupture and (ii) the redistribution of incorporated paraffin oil on the ruptured surfaces as functions of (a) the initial oil concentration and (b) the speed of deformation to the total rupture [...] Read more.
The present work is focused on finding (i) the tearing energy at rupture and (ii) the redistribution of incorporated paraffin oil on the ruptured surfaces as functions of (a) the initial oil concentration and (b) the speed of deformation to the total rupture in a uniaxially induced deformation to rupture on an initially homogeneously oil incorporated styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) matrix. The aim is to understand the deforming speed of the rupture by calculating the concentration of the redistributed oil after rupture using infrared (IR) spectroscopy in an advanced continuation of a previously published work. The redistribution of the oil after tensile rupture for samples that have three different initial oil concentrations with a control sample that has no initial oil has been studied at three defined deformation speeds of rupture along with a cryo-ruptured sample. Single-edge notched tensile (SENT) specimens were used in the study. Parametric fittings of data at different deformation speeds were used to relate the concentration of the initial oil against the concentration of the redistributed oil. The novelty of this work is in the use of a simple IR spectroscopic method to reconstruct a fractographic process to rupture in relation to the speed of the deformation to rupture. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reverse Engineering of Rubber Products in Science and Practice)
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19 pages, 2524 KiB  
Article
Curing, Properties and EMI Absorption Shielding of Rubber Composites Based on Ferrites and Carbon Fibres
by Ján Kruželák, Andrea Kvasničáková, Michaela Džuganová, Lenka Hašková, Rastislav Dosoudil and Ivan Hudec
Polymers 2023, 15(4), 857; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym15040857 - 09 Feb 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1342
Abstract
In this work, magnetic soft ferrites, namely manganese–zinc ferrite, nickel–zinc ferrite and combinations of both fillers, were incorporated into acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber to fabricate composite materials. The total content of ferrites was kept constant—300 phr. The second series of composites was fabricated with a [...] Read more.
In this work, magnetic soft ferrites, namely manganese–zinc ferrite, nickel–zinc ferrite and combinations of both fillers, were incorporated into acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber to fabricate composite materials. The total content of ferrites was kept constant—300 phr. The second series of composites was fabricated with a similar composition. Moreover, carbon fibres were incorporated into rubber compounds in constant amount—25 phr. The work was focused on investigation of the fillers on absorption shieling performance of the composites, which was investigated within the frequency range 1–6 GHz. Then, the physical–mechanical properties of the composites were evaluated. The achieved results demonstrated that the absorption shielding efficiency of both composite types increased with increasing proportion of nickel–zinc ferrite, which suggests that nickel–zinc ferrite demonstrated better absorption shielding potential. Higher electrical conductivity and higher permittivity of composites filled with carbon fibres and ferrites resulted in their lower absorption shielding performance. Simultaneously, they absorbed electromagnetic radiation at lower frequencies. On the other hand, carbon fibres reinforced the rubber matrix, and subsequent improvement in physical–mechanical properties was recorded. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reverse Engineering of Rubber Products in Science and Practice)
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