Mechanical reinforcement in natural rubber/organoclay nanocomposites

Aim of this work is to get an insight into the mechanisms by which nanofillers produce mechanical reinforcement in polymers above their glass transition temperature. To this purpose, the mechanical behaviour of natural rubber/organo-modified montmorillonite vulcanisates produced by melt mixing with various filler contents was investigated. Data of the initial modulus, evaluated from stress-elongation curves obtained in tensile tests carried out at room temperature and a fixed cross-head rate, were analysed as a function of the organoclay content by applying mechanical models proposed in the literature. Such analysis provided an evaluation of the filler percolation threshold. Further, tests performed with varying temperature and rate pointed out appreciable rate and temperature dependence only for samples containing amounts of organoclay higher than the percolation limit, that is in presence of filler networking. Such a typical viscoelastic behaviour associated to the presence of the filler network contributes to support the hypothesis that in filled rubbers the mechanisms of filler networking is based on the formation of confined regions of immobilised polymer that join the filler particles of the network, as recently proposed.