Silicone rubbers are elastomers which are composed of silicone, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. It is widely used in industry and many applications in our daily life. Basically, silicone rubbers can be divided into solid or liquid form. Uncured rubbers are required to undergo vulcanization process with a curing agent or cross-linking agent to produce useful products. Silicone rubbers can be molded into many shapes and designs due to its ease of processing. In this research project, silicone rubbers NE-7150 and NE-7170 were used in the blend in different types of curing agents. Two different vulcanization systems were involved which were peroxide C-15 vulcanization system and platinum C-25A & C-S5B catalysts hydrosilylation. Platinum can offer the silicone rubbers to cure with higher cross-linking density and result in good swelling and mechanical properties. However, as the cross-linking density increases and the rubbers become harder, the percentage elongation at break of the rubbers will drop. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) test was carried out to investigate the structure formation of silicone rubbers. The uncured and cured rubbers showed similar results as the curing of rubbers only happened within the C-C bonds. In Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), the surface morphology of the rubber samples was obtained and the existence of rough surfaces on the platinum cured rubbers indicate it cured with more cross-links than peroxide cured rubbers.
