Conductive natural rubber/carbon black nanocomposites via cellulose nanowhisker templated assembly: tailored hierarchical structure leading to synergistic property enhancements

摘要: The development of novel and versatile strategies to construct conductive polymer composites with low percolation thresholds high mechanical properties is great importance. In this work, a simple, facile effective strategy was developed fabricate tailored carbon black (CB) based 3D hierarchical structures in natural rubber (NR) matrix using renewable biodegradable cellulose nanowhiskers (CNs) as templates. Specifically, needle-like CNs can direct the arrangement CB nanoparticles along CNs, yielding nodular CB@CN nanohybrids excellent suspension stability aspect ratios. As result, could be selectively located interstitial space between NR latex microspheres assembled into continuous network via blending technique. This structure dramatically enhanced electrical composites. With addition 5 vol% CB, conductivity composite significantly by 12 orders magnitude tensile strength increased 760% after incorporation CN Moreover, CB@CNs/NR nanocomposites showed much lower threshold (2.9 vol%) than traditionally prepared CB/NR (7.3 vol%). templated fabrication promote functional use resources extend application production