Nitrile butadiene rubber/hindered phenol nanocomposites with improved strength and high damping performance

A hindered phenol (AO-80) was studied to prepare rubber nanocomposites with nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR). The NBR/AO-80 rubber nanocomposites were successfully developed by applying the adopted preparation procedure/conditions, especially by introducing mechanical kneading of the NBR/AO-80 composites at a temperature higher than the melting point of AO-80, followed by the crosslinking of NBR molecules during the subsequent hot-pressing/vulcanization process. The nanocomposites consisted of two phases: (1) the AO-80 enriched phase (nanoparticles with the average size of approximately 20 nm) and (2) the NBR enriched phase (matrix). The generation and uniform distribution of the nanoparticles were attributed to the high temperature mechanical kneading process, the strong intermolecular interactions between AO-80 and NBR molecules, and the formation of a three-dimensional NBR network. The morphological, structural and mechanical properties of the composites were systematically investigated in each preparation step using SEM, TEM, DSC, XRD, FT-IR, DMTA and a tensile tester. The results indicated that the prepared NBR/AO-80 rubber nanocomposites had single relaxation transitions, improved tensile strengths, high dynamic mechanical loss values, and reasonably good stabilities. The NBR/AO-80 rubber nanocomposites are expected to have important applications as a high performance damping material.