Article
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Tea Grounds as a Waste Biofiller for Natural Rubber
Version 1
: Received: 12 March 2024 / Approved: 12 March 2024 / Online: 13 March 2024 (11:56:26 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Juszkiewicz, A.; Maciejewska, M. Tea Grounds as a Waste Biofiller for Natural Rubber. Materials 2024, 17, 1516. Juszkiewicz, A.; Maciejewska, M. Tea Grounds as a Waste Biofiller for Natural Rubber. Materials 2024, 17, 1516.
Abstract
The aim of this study was utilization of ground tea waste (GT) left after brewing the black tea as a biofiller of natural rubber (NR) composites. Ionic liquids (ILs), i.e., 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium lactate and 1-benzyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride, often used to extract phytochemicals from tea, were applied to improve the dispersibility of GT particles in elastomeric matrix. The influence of GT loading and ILs on curing characteristics, crosslink density, mechanical properties, thermal stability and resistance of NR composites to thermo-oxidative aging was investigated. The amount of GT did not significantly affect curing characteristics and crosslink density of NR composites, but had serious impact on tensile properties. Applying 10 phr of GT improved the tensile strength by 40% compared to unfilled NR. Further increasing in GT content worsened the tensile strength due to the agglomeration of biofiller in elastomer matrix. ILs significantly improved the dispersion of GT particles in elastomer and increased the crosslink density by 20% compared to the benchmark. Owing to the poor thermal stability of pure GT, it reduced the thermal stability of vulcanizates compared to unfilled NR. Most importantly, GT-filled vulcanizates showed improved resistance to thermo-oxidative aging, since the aging factor increased by 25% compared to the unfilled vulcanizate.
Keywords
tea grounds; natural rubber; tea waste; biofiller; ionic liquids
Subject
Chemistry and Materials Science, Polymers and Plastics
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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