Melt-compounded natural rubber nanocomposites with pristine and organophilic layered silicates of natural and synthetic origin

Composites based on natural rubber (NR) and containing organophilic and pristine layered silicates of natural and synthetic origin were produced by melt compounding and sulfur curing. The curing, thermomechanical, and mechanical properties of the mixes, which contained 10 phr (parts per hundred parts of rubber) silicates, were determined. The dispersion of the silicates was studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Organophilic clays accelerated the sulfur curing of NR, which was believed to occur because of a complexation reaction in which the amine groups of the clay intercalants participated. The property improvements caused by the fillers were ranked as follows: organophilic clays > pristine synthetic layered silicate (sodium fluorohectorite) > pristine natural clay (purified sodium bentonite) > precipitated nonlayered silica (used as a reference). This was attributed to partial intercalation of the organophilic clay by NR on the basis of XRD and TEM results and to the high aspect ratio of the fluorohectorite. Apart from intercalation, severe confinement (i.e., the collapse of the interlayer distance) of the organoclays was observed. This peculiar feature was traced to the formation of a zinc coordination complex, which extracted the amine intercalant of the organoclays, thus causing the collapse of the layers. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.