A novel method to prepare acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber/clay nanocomposites by compounding with clay gel

Despite that there have been many reports on the achievement of high-performance rubber/clay nanocomposites, the preparation strategies of these nanocomposites are still quite limited. In this study, a novel method named gel compounding method was utilized to prepare acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR)/clay nanocomposites via compounding solid rubber with clay gels. As illustrated by TEM and XRD, clay was uniformly dispersed in the NBR matrix as either exfoliated platelets or very thin layered silicate stacks, indicating the separated structure was formed in the NBR/clay nanocomposite prepared by this gel compounding method. Mechanical properties were significantly improved for the NBR/clay nanocomposites, which reached the tensile strength of 12.1 MPa with 10 phr clay, more than 250% higher than that of pure NBR.