Research Progress of Silicone Rubber Reinforced by New Nanomaterials

The greatest weakness of silicone rubber is that the physical properties of vulcanizates without reinforcement are very poor. Therefore, how to effectively reinforce silicone rubber has become a key step in the development of silicone rubber products. The filler determines the basic state of rubber macromolecular chain after vulcanization, and has the greatest influence on the strength of rubber. Although the main reinforcing filler of silicone rubber is silica with active silicone hydroxyl and good wettability with silicone rubber, with the emergence of new demand and new nano-materials, the use of new nano-materials to reinforce silicone rubber has become an important research topic. New nano-materials generally have unique structure, such as layered or quasi-one-dimensional. As reinforcing filler of rubber, they have obvious advantages in theory and may become a new way of reinforcing silicone rubber. There are three kinds of new nanomaterials with special structure applied in silicone rubber reinforcement. The first is layered silicate: montmorillonite. The second is silicate nanofibers: attapulgite. The third is high modulus nanomaterials: carbon nanotubes.

The application of new nano-materials in the reinforcement of silicone rubber makes the silicone rubber show attractive prospects in performance, and has become a hot research topic in the reinforcement of silicone rubber. At present, the research on reinforcing silicone rubber with new nano-materials is still in its infancy. The future research focuses on the following aspects: deeply understanding the reinforcing mechanism of new materials such as carbon nanotubes on silicone rubber; researching and exploring the preparation methods and processes of silicone rubber composites to improve the dispersion of fillers in rubber; and strengthening more. The research of nano-materials synergistically reinforcing silicone rubber can improve the comprehensive properties of silicone rubber to meet the actual needs. With the deepening of research, the further improvement of preparation technology and the deeper understanding of reinforcing mechanism, new silicone rubber with high performance can be designed and produced.