Application of rheology as a tool to estimate the mixing quality of elastomeric nanocomposites and comparing with small-angle X-ray scattering microstructural study

Finding a relation between microstructure and properties of nanocomposites is challenging for engineers to control properties of polymeric systems by controlling their microstructure or to estimate their microstructure parameters by studying their properties. Since rheological properties can be obtained in stress or strain modes, sweep of temperatures, sweep of frequencies, amplitudes of applied stress or strains sweep and over the time, creating a relationship between rheological properties and microstructure of nanocomposites has a higher practical freedom. Also, rheological properties are highly affected by mixing quality, which is defined microstructure parameters of systems, so rheology can be applied as a tool to estimate the mixing quality of polymeric systems. Therefore, the present study aims to present the structural model for the rheological behavior of nanocomposites were produced under different mixing conditions and establish the relationship between rheological properties and microstructure of these nanocomposites and evaluate the presented structure with Small-angle X-ray scattering data. Thus, elastomeric nanocomposites were produced at different mixing speeds and times. The results indicated at the lower mixing intensity the agglomerates of nanoparticles are first distributed in the rubber system by increasing the time and speed of mixing so at those mixing condition rheological properties decreased. Finally at the higher mixing intensity the aggregates of these particles start to break so the rheological properties increased. Based on the rheological properties, distributing of particles reduces the rheological properties of nanocomposites, while breaking aggregates increases the rheological properties.