Regarding The Structural Analysis Of Silicone Rubber Obtained From Recycling Used Composite Electric Isolators

Recycling and reusing materials for the development of new products has been an important subject for several years now, receiving the attention of the scientific community. Finding new processing methods and ways to improve the properties of the final materials is one trending subject. The paper analyses the morphological and structural characteristics of recovered silicone rubber from the envelope of used composite electrical insulators obtained using two different technological approaches. The samples obtained by injection and extrusion processes and then subjected to a vulcanization step, have been analyzed by means of Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in order to emphasize the character of the internal structure of the resulting materials. Our investigations show that the character of the samples obtained using the injection process is discontinuous, large cavities forming between the recovered rubber and the binder. However, the samples obtained by extrusion method have proved a uniform micro structural aspect, the internalizing of the recovered rubber granolas into the matrix being much higher. The conclusion shows that extrusion method is a better processing alternative for recovered silicone rubber from the envelope of used composite electrical insulators comparing to injection method, considering the micro structural characteristic of the resulting materials.