Study of new elastomeric composite systems containing wood ash based alternative filler

Abstract

Abstract The presented paper deals with the preparation of the new types of elastomeric composite systems containing an alternative filler based on wood ash or fly ash. Wood ash (fly ash) is generated as the waste from the process of wood pellets burning in the pellet boilers. The results of the EDX analysis confirmed that CaO and SiO2 are the most represented components of wood ash, which contains commonly used white fillers, such as kaolin or silica. Therefore, wood ash was used as an alternative ecological filler in a function of a partial replacement for the commonly used carbon black filler in the elastomer systems. Rheological properties and cure characteristics of prepared elastomer composite systems and tensile properties of resulting vulcanizates have been studied. The prepared elastomeric systems were also subjected to a Payne effect study. The obtained results showed the degree of filler - filler interactions as well as the degree of mutual interactions between alternative filler particles and elastomeric matrix.