CURING KINETICS IN ELASTOMERS. A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

Introduction:
The development of elastomers from rubber has allowed to expand their applications. Therefore, it is necessary to study the curing kinetics through different techniques that allow the study. The selection of the technique depends on the available equipment, the nature of the data, which may be isothermal or not. The common objective is to obtain the activation energy (Ea), the reaction rate (n) and the rate constant (k) through mathematical models.
Objective:
To summarize the main aspects on the subject published to date.
Materials and Methods:
Several bibliographical queries of different scientific references were made without language hierarchy, nor date limit referring to the contents chosen through keywords.
Results and Discussion:
Elastomers are vulcanized to improve their properties. This is a very complex process from a chemical point of view, which occurs in three phases: induction, curing and over-curing. The techniques applied are based on the measurement of a property that varies with the progress of cross-linking. The most studied models are those based on a phenomenological approach.
Conclusions:
To describe curing kinetics, several models have been developed, grouped into two categories: mechanical kinetics and empirical or phenomenological models. The empirical model is considered the most practical, due to the complexity of the mechanical one. The model proposed by Kamal-Sourour is one of the most applied to describe the evolution of the curing process.