FUNCTIONALIZATION OF EPDM RUBBER TOWARD BETTER SILICA DISPERSION AND REINFORCEMENT

Abstract

ABSTRACTFunctionalization of non-polar ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) rubber by melt grafting of maleic anhydride (MA) and in situ incorporation of sol–gel derived silica in the MA grafted EPDM has been done to prepare EPDM/silica composites to use dual benefits of both the approaches, which results in adequate rubber–filler compatibility, good filler dispersion, and enhanced composite properties. Controlled growth of silica up to 25 parts per hundred rubber (phr) is carried out with the solution sol–gel process using tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as a silica precursor. Mechanical and dynamical properties of the composites are found to improve consistently as silica content increases. Furthermore, treatment of maleic anhydride grafted EPDM by γ-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (γ-APS) results in remarkable improvement in composite properties even at the same silica content. This is attributed to the generation of uniformly dispersed spherically shaped nanosilica throughout the rubber matrix as observed in a transmission electron microscopic (TEM) study. This contributes to enhanced crosslinking density and improved rubber–filler interaction. In fact, the reinforcement effect brought by in situ silica relative to unmodified in situ silica/EPDM composites is found to be much higher than that reported in recent work on EPDM/in situ silica composites even with higher silica loading. The mechanical, rheological, and dynamic mechanical behaviors of all the composites are evaluated and compared in detail.