Evaluation of rice husk as filler in natural rubber compound / Asmad Mohd Zain

The effect of different rice husk as filler loading in natural rubber was investigated. The rice husk was grinded using grinding machine and sieved with 100um sieves. The rice husk and natural rubber were mixed using two roll machine with together with other ingredients such as zinc oxide, stearic acid, CBS, TMTD, sulphur, permanax TMQ and ENR 50. The effects of rice husk loading in natural rubber were investigated using several types of testing methods. The differences between unaged and aged also investigated. The tests include tensile test, hardness test, resilience test, abrasion test and swelling test. These tests were conducted to investigate the mechanical properties of natural rubber compounds. The data obtained was analyzed and discussed. It was found that in tensile test the further loading of filler will resulted in reduction of tensile strength. For tensile and resilience test, unaged samples give better result than aged sample but for hardness test it gave better in aged samples than unaged samples. In abrasion test, the increasing of filler loading resulted in decreasing of abrasion resistance index. The optimum loading was determined in this project is 25 phr of rice husk loading.