ORGANOPHILIC RUBBER - MONTMORILLONITE NANOCOMPOSITES

Organophilic rubber-montmorillonite intercalates were prepared by a cation exchange process by the interaction between the Na+ ions of montmorillonite and ammonium cations of amine-terminated butadiene acrylonitrile copolymers. The amount of the grafted rubber into montmorillonite layers as determined by the TGA analysis was found to be 0.6 g rubber/l g rubber-MMT. The resulting rubber-MMT materials were identified by XRD, IR spectra and elemental analysis. The SEM and TEM examinations showed that the clay layers were organized as nanosized clusters whose average size was 60 nm and basal spacings of 15.2 Angstrom.