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Preparation and characterization of high performance exfoliated montmorillonite/silicone rubber nanocomposites with enhanced mechanical properties

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posted on 2017-01-18, 12:44 authored by Nik I. Nik Ismail, Ali Ansarifar, Mo Song
Highly exfoliated and intercalated silicone rubber (SR) nanocomposites based on natural montmorillonite (Cloisite Na+) and organically modified montmorillonite (Cloisite 30B and Cloisite 20A) were successfully prepared by melt-mixing technique. Dispersion of the nanoclays in the rubber nanocomposites was subsequently investigated. As indicated by the X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, intercalation and exfoliation of the clay particles in the nanocomposites was achieved at less than 8 parts per hundred (phr) rubber by weight, irrespective of the initial interlayer spacing of the nanoclay particles. Both Cloisite Na+ and Cloisite 30B were spontaneously transformed into exfoliated microstructures during the vulcanisation stage. Overall, the use of the nanoclays in silicone rubber improved the Young’s modulus, tensile strength and elongation at break by more than 50% as compared to the control rubber. In addition, this work provided a fresh insight into the way intercalated and exfoliated morphologies affect mechanical properties of silicone rubber nanocomposites. It was shown that the exfoliated Cloisite Na+ yielded outstanding mechanical properties with low hysteresis at the same loading of the exfoliated Cloisite 30B and intercalated Cloisite 20A organoclays. As expected, the formation of crosslinks affected the mechanical properties of the rubber vulcanizate significantly.

History

School

  • Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Department

  • Materials

Published in

Polymer Engineering and Science

Volume

53

Issue

12

Pages

2603 - 2614 (12)

Citation

NIK ISMAIL, N.I., ANSARIFAR, A. and SONG, M., 2013. Preparation and characterization of high performance exfoliated montmorillonite/silicone rubber nanocomposites with enhanced mechanical properties. Polymer Engineering and Science, 53 (12), pp.2603-2614

Publisher

Wiley (© Society of Plastics Engineers)

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2013-01-01

Publication date

2013

Notes

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Polymer Engineering and Science, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pen.23528. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

ISSN

1548-2634

Language

  • en

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