Two-roll mill for multiphase rubbers/elastomers

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The objective of this proposal is to purchase a two-roll mill for the development of rubber/elastomer formulations. The equipment will be used to study samples based on blends, (nano)composites, hybrids systems, etc. However, the team will focus on biobased materials (resins, reinforcements and additives) due to the high demand from companies asking help on production problem solving (troubleshooting), raw materials (selection and formulation) and complete characterizations (raw materials and final parts). Biobased materials are more sensitive than petroleum-based materials to degradation via mechanical stresses (shear/elongation) and high temperature mixing conditions due to their functional groups (hydroxyl, amine, etc.). Thus, excellent mixing quality at low speed and low temperature must be performed to limit degradation associated with the processing steps. This is also the case for foams using chemical blowing agents having decomposition temperatures close to the material's processing temperature. Therefore, a good temperature control (value and distribution) is essential to limit thermal decomposition in the mixing step and keep their full blowing efficiency in the production (molding) step. This why a lab-scale two-roll mill is necessary since the equipment can be run at low speed. Moreover, the distance between the rolls to control the shear/elongation rates imposed on the formulations can be easily controlled. It is also easy to control the final mixing quality by the number of cycles the materials go through. Finally, the temperature distribution can be highly uniform and kept low since the materials' thickness is small and the rolls (cooled with a high-power chiller) have high surface area. The equipment selected includes hardened steel rolls and precise manual roll distance adjustment. A high power/torque motor for highly viscous (highly filled) materials/compounds is combined with an AC variable speed option (variable speed drive motors) for a wide range of roll speed. To the best of our knowledge, no such equipment is available in an academic institution (college or university) in Canada to provide support for the Canadian rubber industries. Furthermore, this industry is faced with two major problems: qualified personal availability and waste rubber management. This proposal will address both issues by training students on a very specialized processing equipment and by introducing them to sustainable development concepts by investigating recycled/biobased materials.