For practical applications (tires,seals,dampers,etc),carbon black (CB) derived from petroleum or natural gas is the dominating filler used to reinforce crosslinked rubber materials. Renewable agricultural materials are alternative sources for a sustainable economy. In this study,agricultural materials are investigated as reinforcement fillers in rubber composites. Some renewable materials such as soy protein isolate [1],defatted soy flour [2],soy protein concentrate [3],and soy spent flakes [4] were shown to be effective in increasing rubber modulus. It was also observed that different reinforcement effects were obtained from these soy products that had different protein/carbohydrate ratios [2,3]. In this study,wheat gluten and wheat starch were mixed in different ratios as a co-filler and their effects on the viscoelastic properties of rubber composites were investigated. To simplify the studies,the polymer matrix used in this study was styrene-butadiene (SB) latex with a small amount of carboxylic acid containing monomer units. The carboxylated SB forms a crosslinked polymer matrix by the aggregation of ionic functional groups without the complication of covalent reactions. In practical applications,conventional rubber formulations including different types of rubber latices,crosslinking agents,coupling agents,plasticizers,etc. may also be used.
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