Study on the ageing characteristics of oil palm ash reinforced natural rubber composites by introducing a liquid epoxidized natural rubber coating technique

Oil Palm Ash (OPA), coated with a Liquid Epoxidized Natural Rubber (LENR), was prepared prior to compounding with natural rubber and other curing ingredients, using a laboratory two-roll mill. Owing to better interfacial adhesion between the LENR coating layer and the OPA particles, the tensile strength and elongation at break of the LENR-coated OPA showed higher retention than non-coated OPA filled natural rubber composites after being subjected to thermal ageing at 100 °C for two days. Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) indicated that the thermal stability of LENR-coated OPA filled natural rubber composites was higher than that of non-coated OPA filled natural rubber composites. However, this phenomenon only occurred from ambient temperature up to the temperature at which the LENR coating phase started to decompose.