ZnO nanoparticles were found to be more uniformly dispersed in the rubber matrix in comparison with the conventional rubber grade ZnO as evident from scanning electron microscopy/X-ray dot mapping analysis.
The tensile strength was observed to improve by 80% for NR when ZnO nanoparticles were used as cure activator instead of conventional rubber grade ZnO.
An improvement of 70% was observed in the case of NBR.
The glass transition temperature (Tg) showed a positive shift by 68C for both NR and NBR nanocomposites, which indicatedan increase in crosslinking density.
was found to decrease in the case of both NR and NBR, and volume fraction of rubber in swollen gel was observed to
increase, which supported the improvement in mechanical and dynamic mechanical properties