Properties And Applications Of Liquid Rubber Modified Attapulgite

Polymer/silicate nanocomposite has gradually become the research focus of polymeric materials and silicate mineral materials because of its excellent mechanical properties, practical preparation and efficient processing performance. The composite made of attapulgite and polymers is as well as an important research. However, agglomeration often occurs due to the larger surface energy and hydrophilic of attapulgite. In order to solve the problems above, this paper attempts to use liquid rubber to coated-modified attapulgite, and mix with butadiene rubber to prepare an exfoliated composite. The effect of modified attapulgite on properties of butadiene rubber and reinforcing mechanism are also preliminarily studied.Ethyl acetate is determined as the liquid rubber solvent by comparative experiment. The processes of liquid rubber coated-modified attapulgite are the following steps, the amount of KH-590 is 3%, attapulgite with liquid rubber mass ratio(A:H) is 60:30, temperature of water bath is 40℃, stirring speed is 1000 r/min, stirring time is 20 min. The minimum surface energy of attapulgite is 27.89 J/m2.Taking the liquid rubber coated- modified attapulgite powder as a reinforcing filler and mixing with butadiene rubber. When A:H is 2:1, the tensile strength of composite is 10% higher than that of without using a liquid rubber coated- modified composite with the filling amount under 50 phr. When there is 20 g liquid rubber in the filler, the tensile strength of composite increases with increasing of filling amounts. The tensile strength reached 11.71 MPa when the filling is 80 phr.The result of the liquid rubber insert into the attapulgite inter- layer is confirmed by XRD and SEM analysis and the network structure of rubber matrix and butadiene rubb er has been formed after vulcanization. These led to some attapulgite exfoliated and dispersed in the rubber matrix, which played a special reinforcing effect.