Improved peel strength in vulcanized sbr rubber roughened before chlorination with trichloroisocyanuric acid

The effectiveness of chlorination as surface treatment to improve the adhesion of synthetic vulcanized styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) depends on several experimental variables. Solutions of trichloroisocyanuric acid (TCI) in methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) have been used as effective chlorination agents for several rubbers. In this study, the influence of roughening prior to chlorination treatment of a SBR rubber (R2) and the durability of the modifications produced as the time after chlorination increased have been considered. Two concentrations of the chlorination agent (0.5 and 2 wt% TCI/MEK) have been used and the chlorination treatment was applied on the R2 rubber surface using a brush. Characterization of the treated surfaces was carried out using contact angle measurements, ATR-IR spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). T-peel tests of treated R2 rubber/polyurethane adhesive joints have been carried out to determine the adhesion properties. Roughening was an effective treatment to remove paraffin waxes (antiadherent moieties) from the R2 rubber surface. When the chlorination is produced on the roughened R2 rubber, more noticeable chemical and morphological modifications were produced, and higher adhesion was obtained. On the other hand, TCI particles appeared on the roughened and unroughened chlorinated R2 rubber surface, and the size of these TCI particles were decreased by increasing the time after treatment. Furthermore, similar peel strength values were obtained for time after halogenation higher than 2 hours; for shorter time, a decrease in peel strength was found by increasing the time, due to the migration of paraffin wax to the rubber surface.