Cellulose Acetate Derived from Waste Cigarette Buds as a Filler in Rubber Compounding: A Sustainable Approach

Abstract

Cigarette smoking has been a popular trend among teens and adults in the world and as a result, the production of cigarettes has drastically increased over the last few decades. After smoking, billions of cigarette buds are discarded into the environment which adds a series of harmful chemicals and non-biodegradable cellulose acetate polymers. These materials may affect the soil, and water quality which ultimately harms plants and animals. On the other hand, cellulose acetate is a useful polymer that has many industrial applications. Therefore, the current research outlines an efficient and economical route to recycle waste cigarette buds to be used in value-added products. Cellulose acetates were recovered from used and damaged cigarette buds by employing physical and chemical treatments and characterized by FTIR spectroscopy. The recovered cellulose acetates were incorporated into a tire base formulation. Cellulose-based cotton flocks were used as reference material to compare the properties of cellulose acetate incorporated samples, as it is entirely used as a filler in tire-base formulations in the industry. The shredded version of cellulose acetate content was increased by blending with cotton flocks to obtain 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% filler composition in a typical type of formulation. Another run was completed by using chemically extracted cellulose acetate to have a 75% cellulose acetate filler composition. All of the cellulose acetate incorporated samples have a shorter cure time relative to the reference material. Tensile strength was improved in the shredded version of cellulose acetate samples significantly. The hardness of all the blends was comparable to the reference and within the expected range for a tire base formulation. The tear strength was slightly improved in the blended samples and more importantly, the compression set was significantly lower in blended samples which is a good sign as a filler material. To sum up, cellulose acetate can be used as an effective reinforcing filler in tire-base and similar formulations.