Magnetic and dynamic mechanical properties of barium ferrite-natural rubber composites

High coercivity barium ferrite (BaFe(12)O(19)) Powders have been prepared by a coprecipitation method. After removing fine powders, they were incorporated into a natural rubber matrix with different loading levels up to 120 phr (part per hundred rubber). The variations in characteristics of rubber-ferrite composites (RFCs) were evaluated as a function of ferrite loading. The results showed that the coercivity is improved and the saturation magnetization is linearly dependent on the mass fraction of the filler, while the tensile strength, strain at break and modules are highly influenced by the size, shape and volume fraction of ferrite particles. The present RFCs showed a typical characteristic of low density (2.2 g/cm(3)), high stored energy (BH(max) = 1.18 MG Oe) and flexibility (resilience = 0.844) at 120 phr of ferrite, which are relatively high when compared to previous works. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.