Single-atom zinc controlled-release catalysts for efficient vulcanization of rubber

IF 7.4 2区材料科学 Q1 MATERIALS SCIENCE, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Science China Materials Pub Date : 2025-07-31 DOI:10.1007/s40843-025-3472-2

Qi Zhang (, ), Ge Yu (, ), Xiaoping Gao (, ), Peng Li (, ), Ze Lin (, ), Ruilong Li (, ), Yuen Wu (, )

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Abstract

Reducing the amount of zinc oxide (ZnO) is a continuous pursuit of the rubber industry because of the high cost and environmental pollution of Zn. However, reducing the amount of ZnO will inevitably lead to a decrease in the crosslinking density and the loss of mechanical properties of rubber; thus, this remains a huge challenge. Herein, we prepared Zn single-atoms supported on graphene oxide (Zn SAs@GO) as controlled-release catalysts for effective rubber vulcanization, which can improve the crosslinking density and mechanical properties of rubber by reducing Zn dosage compared to commercial ZnO by 82.5%. X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) analysis reveals that Zn–O bond is 2.03 Å in Zn SAs@GO, which possesses moderate Zn–O binding energy. Thus Zn²⁺ ions can be controlled-release and participate in the vulcanization reaction with higher activity. Moreover, due to the homogeneous dispersion of Zn atoms in Zn SAs@GO, zinc catalysts were fully utilized during the vulcanization process, resulting in a 6.6% increase in crosslinking density of the prepared vulcanized rubber compared to that of commercial ZnO. This work contributes to the development of large-scale preparation for SACs and potentially pave the way for their applications in industrial rubber manufacture.

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橡胶高效硫化用单原子锌控释催化剂

由于锌的高成本和环境污染，降低氧化锌的用量一直是橡胶工业的追求。然而，ZnO用量的减少必然导致交联密度的降低和橡胶力学性能的损失；因此，这仍然是一个巨大的挑战。本文制备了氧化石墨烯负载Zn单原子（Zn SAs@GO）作为橡胶有效硫化的控释催化剂，与商用ZnO相比，锌用量减少82.5%，可提高橡胶的交联密度和力学性能。x射线吸收光谱（XAS）分析表明，Zn SAs@GO中Zn - o键为2.03 Å，具有中等的Zn - o结合能。从而使Zn2+离子可控释放，并以较高的活性参与硫化反应。此外，由于锌原子在Zn SAs@GO中的均匀分散，锌催化剂在硫化过程中得到充分利用，所制备的硫化橡胶的交联密度比商用ZnO提高了6.6%。这项工作有助于SACs大规模制备的发展，并有可能为其在工业橡胶生产中的应用铺平道路。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Science China Materials Materials Science-General Materials Science

CiteScore

11.40

自引率

7.40%

发文量

949

期刊介绍： Science China Materials (SCM) is a globally peer-reviewed journal that covers all facets of materials science. It is supervised by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and co-sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The journal is jointly published monthly in both printed and electronic forms by Science China Press and Springer. The aim of SCM is to encourage communication of high-quality, innovative research results at the cutting-edge interface of materials science with chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering. It focuses on breakthroughs from around the world and aims to become a world-leading academic journal for materials science.