ABSTRACT
In conjunction with the chemicals used in a rubber formulation to ensure acceptable product characteristics, a number of ingredients may be incorporated to allow or improve processing with the manufacturing equipment available in the plant. The stages of rubber processing may be broken down into rawmaterials handling, mixing, forming, and vulcanization. Some of the factors that may influence the process economics and product acceptability in these stages are listed in Table 1. The function of the processing additives is to minimize or overcome any problems associated with product fabrication while maintaining, or even improving, product performance. Before going into detail, some examples of acceptable performance criteria for processing additives at the four stages in product manufacture are presented briefly.
