STUDY ON NANOMORPHOLOGY OF HIGH-STRUCTURE CARBON BLACK AND ITS BOUND RUBBER BY AFM

Bound rubber in carbon black (CB) filled rubber (natural rubber (NR) and styrene–butadiene rubber (SBS)) was prepared by the solvent method. The nanomorphology of CB and rubber/CB soluble rubber was observed by atomic force microscope. The results show that high-structure CB DZ13 has a "grape cluster" structure which consists of many original particles with the grain size of about 30–50 nm. Graphitizing process of CB decreases the amount of bound rubber. The NR/DZ13 soluble rubber with island–rim structure has been obtained, where the islands are DZ13 particles and the rims around the islands are occupied by NR film. But when the graphitized DZ13 particles were used as fillers of rubber, we have only observed that some graphitized DZ13 particles were deposited on the surface of the globular-like NR molecular chains, instead of the spreading of NR molecular chains along the surface of DZ13 particles, indicating that graphitized DZ13 has lower chemical activity than ungraphitized DZ13. Especially, we have already observed an interesting unusual bound rubber phenomenon, the blocked "bracelet" structure with the diameter of about 600 nm in which CB particles were blocked in ring-shaped SBS monomer.