Effects of bentonite loading on curing characteristics, tensile, thermal and morphological properties of bentonite-filled acrylonitrile butadiene rubber composites

In this paper, the effects of bentonite(Bt) loading on the performances of bentonite filled acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBR/Bt) composites were reported. The cure characteristics, tensile properties, thermal properties and morphology of NBR/Bt composites were studied. As the Bt loading was increased, the curing time (t 90) and scorch time (t s2) were reduced until 30 phr of Bt loading and increased with further increasing of Bt loading afterwards. However, the minimum torque (ML) and maximum torque (MH) increased with increasing Bt loading. The increasing char residue and decomposition temperature indicated an improvement of thermal properties of NBR/Bt composites with increasing Bt loading. Furthermore, the tensile fractured surface morphology of the NBR/Bt composites has shown increasing crack propagation with more surface roughness. Hence, resulted a better tensile strength, elongation at break and tensile modulus compared to the pure NBR particularly up to 90 phr of Bt loading. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.