Studies of natural rubber/montmorillonite nanocomposites

In the present work, an attempt has been made to make natural rubber/clay nanocomposite and to study the performance of nanocomposite in terms of mechanical, swelling resistance and thermal properties. The incorporation of organomodified clay has been varied from 1 phr to 7 phr in natural rubber matrix. It has been found that at 5 phr loading of organomodified clay in natural rubber matrix has shown highest tensile strength. Moreover swelling resistance of nanocomposite has drastically decreased with increasing organomodified clay loading. It has also been demonstrated by TGA analysis that thermal stability of nanocomposite has maximum thermal stability at 5 phr loading of organomodified clay. The microstructure and dispersion of the composite was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The optimum rate of organoclay incorporation was 5 parts per hundred rubbers.