Toughening natural rubber by the innate sacrificial network

Although natural rubber (NR) is widely used in rubber industry, the reason why NR owns superior mechanical properties still remains as an open question. Previous studies mainly focus on the molecular chain structure investigation of NR (for example, highly cis stereoregularity) and neglect the impor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polymer (Guilford) 2020-04, Vol.194, p.122419, Article 122419
Main Authors: Yu, Wei-Wei, Xu, Wen-Zhe, Xia, Jie-Hui, Wei, Yan-Chan, Liao, Shuangquan, Luo, Ming-Chao
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Construction
Crosslinking
Elastomers
Mechanical properties
Molecular chains
Molecular structure
Natural rubber
Non-rubber components
Rubber
Sacrificial network
Toughness
Transmission electron microscopy
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Summary:Although natural rubber (NR) is widely used in rubber industry, the reason why NR owns superior mechanical properties still remains as an open question. Previous studies mainly focus on the molecular chain structure investigation of NR (for example, highly cis stereoregularity) and neglect the importance of non-rubber components (NRC) to strength and toughness. Herein, we use transmission electron microscopy to clearly observe the network constructed by NRC in the NR matrix. Such network is considered as an innate sacrificial network. Upon deformation, the innate sacrificial network preferentially ruptures to dissipate energy, leading to improvement in toughness of NR. Moreover, some NRC can act as the crosslinking points in the NR matrix, which further improve the strength and toughness. Therefore, our group ascribes the excellent strength and toughness of NR to the contribution of sacrificial network constructed by NRC. This work provides another understanding for the relationship among structure, components, and properties of NR, which can further act as a design strategy for high performance elastomer materials. [Display omitted] •Non-rubber components (NRC) construct the sacrificial network in the natural rubber (NR) matrix.•Some NRC can act as the effective crosslinking points.•The NRC network improves the strength and toughness of NR.
ISSN:0032-3861
1873-2291
DOI:10.1016/j.polymer.2020.122419