ORGANOPHILIC RUBBER - MONTMORILLONITE NANOCOMPOSITES

Organophilic rubber-montmorillonite intercalates were prepared by a ca tion exchange process by the interaction between the Na+ ions of montm orillonite and ammonium cations of amine-terminated butadiene acryloni trile copolymers. The amount of the grafted rubber into montmorillonit e layers as determined by the TGA analysis was found to be 0.6 g rubbe r/l g rubber-MMT. The resulting rubber-MMT materials were identified b y XRD, IR spectra and elemental analysis. The SEM and TEM examinations showed that the clay layers were organized as nanosized clusters whos e average size was 60 nm and basal spacings of 15.2 Angstrom.