Bioinspired design of nitrile-butadiene rubber/montmorillonite nanocomposites with hydrogen bond interactions leading to highly effective reinforcement

Abstract

An efficient and environmentally friendly strategy was demonstrated for enhancing the interfacial interaction between nitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR) and montmorillonite (MMT) nanocomposites. Herein, we coated the MMT surface with a thin coating of polydopamine (PDA), and then compounded PDA-coated MMT (DMMT) gel with the solid NBR via gel compounding method to obtain NBR/DMMT nanocomposites. It was revealed that the hydrogen bond interactions between DMMT and NBR are responsible for the nanodispersion of DMMT as well as for effective stress transfer. This led to a great improvement in the mechanical properties of the NBR/DMMT nanocomposite at low DMMT loading. Using only 6 phr DMMT, the tensile strength of NBR/DMMT nanocomposite was able to achieve 15.9 MPa, which is 4.1 times that of pure NBR.