Reclaimed Rubber/Thermoplastics Blends: Dielectric, Mechanical, and Thermal Properties

The mass production of tires, as well as the difficulty in reducing their waste, define a serious environmental problem. There are several methods for recycling discarded tires, one of the most common being mechanical shredding, in which the vulcanized rubber is separated from the steel and fibres, resulting in ground tire rubber (GTR). This rubber can be used in various applications such as insulating footwear soles, insulating floors, or as insulation for special electric motors. The objective of this research is to evaluate the use of this GTR when mixed with various types of polymeric matrix by measuring the mechanical, thermal, and dielectric properties of the resulting composites (polymer + GTR). The analysis was performed using four polymeric matrices (ABS, EVA, PA, and PP) mixed with different concentrations of GTR.