ARS | Publication request: Viscoelastic Properties of Rubber Composites Reinforced by Wheat Gluten and Starch Co-filler

Submitted to: American Chemical Society Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: December 16, 2008
Publication Date: March 22, 2009
Citation: Jong, L. 2009. Viscoelastic Properties of Rubber Composites Reinforced by Wheat Gluten and Starch Co-filler. American Chemical Society Abstracts. Paper No. PMSE220.

Technical Abstract: Due to different abilities of wheat gluten (WG) and wheat starch (WS) to increase the modulus of rubber composites, the composite properties can be adjusted by varying the ratio of WG to WS as a co-filler. This study shows that the co-filler composites became more temperature dependent as the WG content increased. The co-filler composites dominated by WS had a larger reinforcement effect, while that dominated by WG had a smaller reinforcement effect. For fatigue and recovery properties, the initial structures of WS-dominated composites were more stable at the smaller strains, but they broke down at the larger strains without much recovery. The WG-dominated composites, on the other hand, had a less stable composite structure at the smaller strains, but had better recovery ability. For the residual structures of these composites after the strain cycles, the co-filler composites became less elastic as the WS content increased. The extent of stress softening indicated WS-dominated composites had a significant structure deformation and were less elastic compared to WG-dominated composites. The viscoelastic properties of carbon black composites were also investigated and shown to be closer to that of WG-dominated composites. This study shows that the modulus and elasticity of co-filler composites can be changed to fit different applications by varying the co-filler ratio of WG to WS.