Ground tire rubber was submitted to a microwaves treatment in order to promote its devulcanization, that is, the breaking of the crosslinks between the chains. The influence of the processing parameters, such as time of exposure to the microwaves and number of treatment steps, was investigated. After the treatment, the material was characterized in terms of its thermal, by DSC, dynamic-mechanical, by DMA and rheological, by capillary rheometry, properties. In addition, the extraction of soluble fractions was made in soxhlet, to evaluate the amount of rubber that effectively was devulcanized during the microwaves treatment. The devulcanization treatment showed to be a viable method to produce a material which can be molded, in a similar way to virgin rubber. However, the complete devulcanization of the material was not possible in any devulcanization condition used. The thermal analysis showed that significant changes in the chemical structure were induced when the material was exposed to the microwaves for long times.
Rubber recycling; devulcanization; microwaves; ground tire rubber; GTR
