Cure kinetics of ethylene acrylate rubber/clay nanocomposites

This work reports some new findings for organoclay dispersion and its effect on the cure behavior of ethylene acrylate rubber (EAR)/clay nanocomposites, which were prepared by melt mixing procedure. Based on the X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation, the organoclay-filled EAR composites showed a fairly good dispersion composed of a mixture of intercalated and exfoliated clay layers at relatively lower clay contents below 10 phr, but a partial re-aggregation of clays was formed with further increase of organoclay. While the organoclay enhanced the rate of cure of EAR based on the cure rheometer, the pristine clay showed much smaller effect. The autocatalytic model showed a close fitting with experimental values for cure rates with the correlation coefficient (R2) of ∼0.98, proving the validity of the model for describing the cure behavior of the system. The glass transition temperature slightly shifted to higher temperatures by employing the organoclay because of the restriction in motion of EAR chain segments in the clay galleries.