A novel epoxy adhesive with ground rubber tire powder and carboxylated multiwalled carbon nanotubes

The present study was an attempt to improve the toughness, mechanical and adhesion properties, and thermal stability of a two-phase epoxy DGEBA/Resole phenolic resin through the use of carboxyl-modified multi-walled carbon nanotubes (c-MWCNTs) and ground rubber tire (GRT) powder. The effect of a hybrid reinforcement containing GRT and c-MWCNT blend on the mechanical properties, thermal stability, and microstructure of the epoxy-phenolic adhesive were evaluated by tensile test, TGA, and FESEM, respectively. The formulated adhesive was utilized in a lap joint metal to a composite in order to peruse the adhesion features, where the composite was an epoxy resin reinforced with carbon fibers and the metal was stainless steel 316 L. According to the tensile test, there were 32% rise in tensile strength, 27% rise in modulus, and a 64% rise in toughness with adding 0.5% wt c-MWCNTs and 15 phr waste GRT powder to the epoxy-phenolic matrix. Furthermore, adding 1% wt c-MWCNTs of nanoparticles and GRT powder has resulted in a 15% increase in lap shear strength. It also can be seen that thermal stability for the formulated samples has experienced an upward trend compared to the neat epoxy composite.