Two-roll mill for multiphase rubbers/elastomers

该提案的目标是购买一台用于开发橡胶/弹性体配方的双辊磨粉机。该设备将用于研究基于混合物、(纳米)复合材料、混合系统等的样品。然而，由于公司在解决生产问题(故障排除)、原材料(选择和配方)和完整表征(原材料和最终部件)方面要求帮助的公司要求很高，团队将专注于生物基材料(树脂、增强材料和添加剂)。生物基材料由于其官能团(羟基、胺等)对机械应力(剪切/伸长)和高温混合条件下的降解比石油基材料更敏感。因此，必须在低速和低温下执行良好的混合质量，以限制与处理步骤相关的劣化。使用化学发泡剂的泡沫塑料也是如此，其分解温度接近材料的加工温度。因此，良好的温度控制(数值和分布)对于限制混合步骤中的热分解并保持其在生产(成型)步骤中的充分吹炼效率至关重要。这就是为什么实验室规模的双辊轧机是必要的，因为该设备可以在低速运行。此外，控制施加在配方上的剪切/伸长率的辊之间的距离可以很容易地控制。它也很容易通过材料经过的循环次数来控制最终的混合质量。最后，由于材料厚度小，轧辊(用大功率冷水机组冷却)有很大的表面积，所以温度分布可以高度均匀并保持在较低的水平。选用的设备包括淬火钢辊和精确的手动辊距调整。高粘度(高填充)材料/化合物的高功率/扭矩电机与交流变速选项(变速驱动电机)相结合，可实现宽范围的滚动速度。据我们所知，加拿大的学术机构(学院或大学)还没有这样的设备来支持加拿大的橡胶工业。此外，这个行业面临着两大问题：合格的人员可用性和废旧橡胶的管理。这项提案将通过对学生进行非常专门的加工设备培训来解决这两个问题，并通过调查回收/生物基材料向他们介绍可持续发展的概念。

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.