Thermal Characterization and Surface Morphology of Natural Rubber (NR)/Nitrile Butadiene Rubber (NBR) Blend

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the thermal properties such as stability, degradation and glass transition temperature of Natural Rubber (NR) blended with Nitrile Butadiene Rubber (NBR) at 80:20 concentrations. Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) has been successfully exploited to study the thermal properties of the blend in the temperature range of room temperature to 600 °C. The temperature increased in the steps of 20 °C/min, whereas the heating rate is varied dynamically when the weight change occurs. In addition, the studies on the power loss per minute were also carried out using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) under Argon (Ar) atmosphere with the Ar flow being 80.0 mL/min. The heating rate is 10 °C/ min. The DSC studies were carried out in the temperature range of –125 °C to 200 °C. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) has been used to study the surface morphology of NR/ NBR blend