1Physics Department, Visva-Bharati Central University, P.O.- Santiniketan, West Bengal, India
2Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India
Journal of Polymer and Biopolymer Physics Chemistry.
2014,
Vol. 2 No. 1, 25-28
DOI: 10.12691/jpbpc-2-1-4
Copyright © 2014 Science and Education PublishingCite this paper: Arunava Mandal, Sandip Pan, Subrata Mukherjee, Achintya K. Saha, Sabu Thomas, Asmita Sengupta. Variations in Specific Heat and Microstructure in Natural Rubber Filled with Different Fillers as Studied by Differential Scanning Calorimetry.
Journal of Polymer and Biopolymer Physics Chemistry. 2014; 2(1):25-28. doi: 10.12691/jpbpc-2-1-4.
Correspondence to: Asmita Sengupta, Physics Department, Visva-Bharati Central University, P.O.- Santiniketan, West Bengal, India. Email:
asmita_sengupta@hotmail.comAbstract
The variation of specific heat (Cp) of natural rubber (NR) is studied by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). The NR samples are filled with different fillers (nanoclay, TiO2, and nanosilica) at different concentrations. The DSC measurements are done in N2 atmosphere with constant pressure of 0.3 bar to prevent any oxidation of the samples. The temperature has been varied up to 210°C from -40°C at a constant heating rate of 10°C \min throughout the experiment and Proteus analysis software is used to study the variation of specific heat (Cp) as function of both temperature and filler concentrations. The investigation shows that the Cp values increase with the increase of filler concentrations. Due to nanometer range diameter, these fillers fill up some of the free volume holes of NR sample. The fillers also make cross-link with NR chains causing an increase the molecular weight of NR as well as the Cp values. Thus the fillers act as active fillers for NR sample.
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