Effect of Ball Milling Parameters on Properties of Attapulgite Filled Natural Rubber Composite

Natural rubber (NR)/attapulgite (ATP) composites was prepared via combination latex compounding and melt mixing. Ball milling method was tailored to improve the ATP dispersion before compounded with latex. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of ball milling parameters and operating conditions which were focusing on ball mill size and ball mill ratio on the tensile and morphological properties of NR/ATP composites. Mechanical testing such as tensile test and hardness test were subjected to the samples. The composite was characterized with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to reveal the effect of ball milling parameters on the morphological properties of the composites. Swelling measurement was done to determine the crosslink density of the composites. A ball to weight ratio (BPR) of 1:5 and large size ball mill were found as the optimized milling parameters for NR/ATP composites.