COMPARISON OF THE MECHANICAL AND DIELECTRIC CHARACTERISTICS OF VARIOUS POLYMERS MIXED WITH GROUND TIRED RUBBER (GTR) FOR ITS APPLICATION AS INDUSTRIAL WORK FOOTWEAR INSULATOR

Abstract

The massive manufacture of tires and their difficulty for subsequent recycling, represents today, a serious environmental problem. There are several methods to try to recycle used tires, one of them is mechanical separation, in which the vulcanized rubber is separated from steel and fibers, which results in a rubber that can be milled into small particles (Ground Tire Rubber, or GTR). This rubber can be used in various applications, such as the one presented by this research, in which, once mixed with customary polymers, it should be used for the manufacture of insulation for industrial work shoes. Therefore, the objective of this study is to evaluate the results of mixing these GTR particles with several commonly used polymer matrices (polymer + GTR), verifying that both their mechanical and dielectric properties comply with the standards established for the manufacture of the insulation for shoes for industrial use. The analysis will be carried out using seven polymer matrices mixed with different concentrations of GTR. Keywords: GTR, Recycling, Electrical properties, Mechanical properties, Insulation, Use as isolation of work shoes.