Comparative study of the effect of untreated, silanized and grafted alumina nanoparticles on thermal and dynamic mechanical properties of the styrene-butadiene rubber

Elastomers filled with hard nanoparticles are of great technical importance for the rubber industry. In general, fillers improve mechanical properties of polymer materials, e.g. elastic moduli, tensile strength etc. The smaller the size of the particles the larger is the interface where interactions between polymer molecules and fillers can generate new properties. Using Temperature Modulated Differential Scanning Calorimetry (TMDSC) and Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA), we investigated the properties of the pure styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR), SBR/ alumina nanoparticles, SBR/silanized alumina and SBR/alumina grafted to polymer chains. Beside a general reinforcement effect seen in the complex elastic moduli, the studies revealed that: i) small concentrations of nanoparticles (of 1.5-2 wt%) lead to a minimum in the glass transition temperature as a function of nanoparticle content; ii) for the grafted nanocomposites increasing the nanoparticle concentration beyond 4 wt% yields an increase of Tg by 4 K; iii) DMA mastercurves showed that in case of untreated and silanized alumina mechanical behaviour of the composite systems is rather near to the one of the SBR matrix, but the grafting of elastomer molecules to the silanized fillers induces a quasi-solid like response of the system in the low frequency regime.