Effect of rubber polarity on selective wetting of carbon nanotubes in ternary blends

Abstract

Based on atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis of the rubber-filler gel (wetting concept) the kinetics of selective wetting of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in ternary styrene butadiene rubber (SBR)/butadiene rubber (BR)/natural rubber (NR) blends was qualitatively and quantitatively characterized. Almost all CNTs are found to be wetted by the non-polar NR but not by the other non-polar rubber like BR or weakly polar SBR. It was proposed that phospholipids, which are linked to the -terminal of NR can interact with the CNT surface through cation-# interactions forming strong bonding between NR and CNTs. Using the corrected surface tension value of NR, which involves the effect of phospholipids found in our previous work the selective wetting of CNTs in ternary rubber blends can be well predicted using the Z-model for a thermodynamic equilibrium state. By replacing the non-polar BR by a polar rub- ber like nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) as a blend component CNTs are wetted by NBR slightly more than by NR thanks to the strong interaction between CNTs and nitrile groups of NBR. SBR remains unbound to CNTs in both blends.