Derived from corn straw cellulose: modified used tire rubber powder composites

The development of the automobile industry will bring a large number of used tires, forming “black” pollution. At the same time, China is a big agricultural country, which produces a large amount of corn straw every year, the traditional straw treatment methods such as incineration and feed conversion, which have low utilization rate and pollute the environment. In this work, the corn straw was processed into cellulose to reinforce used rubber powder, preparing the corn straw cellulose (CS)/used tire rubber powder (GTR) composites. NaOH and CH₃COOH solutions were used as treating agents, and then silane coupling agent Si69, KH550, KH590 and titanate coupling agent HY101 were used to modify compatibility between CS and GTR. The mechanical properties, combustion and composition of CS/GTR composites were studied by mechanical properties, SEM, XPS, FTIR, fire resistance and hydroscopicity test. The results showed that the corn straw pretreated with NaOH solution contained higher cellulose and had the higher strength. The tensile strength, bending strength, elongation at break and Shore A hardness of Si69–CS/GTR composites were increased by 2.03 MPa, 4.01 MPa, 18.6% and 15%, respectively, the wear decreased by 33%, the hydroscopicity decreased by 26.5%, and was of good flame retardancy when the CS was 25 phr (per hundred parts of rubber) and Si69 was 2.0 phr. A new way to prepare recycled materials from waste materials was explored by studying CS/GTR composites, and widened the application field of CS and GTR waste materials.