Influence of curing system composition and aging on the performance of rubber magnets based on NBR and EPDM

Rubber magnetic composites were fabricated by incorporation of strontium ferrite in constant loading level in ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber and acrylonitrile butadiene rubber. Different curing additives based on peroxide, sulfur and combined sulfur/peroxide systems were introduced for cross-linking of rubber matrices. Both sulfur and peroxide curing systems lead to the formation of cross-links with different length and structure, which subsequently results in different properties of rubber products. Moreover, due to various bonding energies of the formed cross-links, rubber articles exhibit different propensity to degradation factors as to thermo-oxidative aging. Therefore, the work was aimed at the investigation of curing system composition and aging on cross-link density and properties of rubber magnetic composites. The achieved results point out to close correlation between cross-link density and physical-mechanical characteristics with exception of tensile strength, which showed increasing tendency with increasing amount of peroxide in combined vulcanization systems. It can be stated that no significant changes in physical-mechanical and magnetic properties were recorded during aging.