284 publications from this institution
To improve the antioxidative efficiency of 2-mercaptobenzimidazole (MB) and strengthen the interaction between halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) and natural rubber (NR), HNTs supported 2-mercaptobenzimidazole (HNTs-s-MB) was prepared by reacting MB with chlorosilane modified HNTs (m-HNTs). FTIR, XPS and TGA confirmed that MB was chemically bonded onto the surface of HNTs. HNTs-s-MB could be homogeneously dispersed in the NR matrix and there was a strong interfacial interaction between HNTs-s-MB and NR, leading to the better mechanical performances of NR/HNTs-s-MB nanocomposites than those of NR/HNTs nanocomposites. Based on the measurements of the thermo-oxidation activation energy of NR/HNTs-s-MB and NR/m-HNTs/MB nanocomposites containing equivalent antioxidant component, it was found that the antioxidative efficiency of HNTs-s-MB was superior to that of the corresponding low molecular MB owing to the much lower migration and volatility of HNTs-s-MB than those of MB.
Programming energy-dissipating units into polymers is an effective method to improve the toughness; however, the state-of-art approaches usually involve complicated chemistry manipulation and multistep process. In this contribution, we report a brand-new way to toughen styrene–butadiene rubber (SBR) by incorporating a sulfur-based ionomer to construct hierarchical coordination complexes. Specifically, the ionomer P(TA-S)/Fe containing polysulfide backbones and iron–carboxylate complexes was synthesized through the copolymerization of thioctic acid and sulfur, followed by introducing ferric chloride. Due to the reaction between polysulfide fragments in P(TA-S)/Fe and SBR, the incorporation of P(TA-S)/Fe enabled the chemical cross-linking of SBR and grafting of iron–carboxylate complexes onto SBR chains. The grafted iron–carboxylate complexes aggregated and formed a phase separate structure within SBR, which provided a multilevel energy-dissipating mechanism and consequently led to an integration of enhanced ultimate strength, modulus, and fracture toughness of SBR.
