Investigation and improvement of the scorch behavior of silica-filled solution styrene-butadiene rubber compound

Effects of different silane coupling agents on scorch time of silica-filled solution styrene-butadiene rubber compounds were studied. The flocculation of silica at high temperature, which was characterized by rubber processing analyzer (RPA) and transmission electron microscope (TEM), has been proved to be an important factor affecting the scorch time of the compounds. In order to prolong the scorch time, the hybrid silane technology, that is, combining different silanes such as bis(triethoxysilypropyl)-tetrasulfide (TESPT) and n-octyltriethoxysilane (OTES) together, was developed to improve silica dispersion and suppress silica flocculation. The results showed that when the content of TESPT is fixed, the increase of OTES can effectively increase the scorch time due to the suppression of silica flocculation while not affecting the polymer crosslinking. This phenomenon is absent for the case where the OTES content is fixed, but the TESPT content is varied because the sulfur atoms in the TESPT molecules will also participate in the vulcanization process, leading to the decrease in scorch time. Through the present study, a connection between silica flocculation and scorch time has been built up, which is important for rubber composite processing. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47918.