ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Only 3phr of octosilicate (OCTO), swollen with cetyltrimethylammonium ions (CTA), used as an additive in a rubber tire tread compound (80phr of Highly Dispersible Silica, HDS) improves the end properties. The presence of the organo-modified synthetic layered silicate increases vulcanization rate, while the analogue natural silicate, montmorillonite, did not show the same effects (J. G. Meier, 2013a, 2013b, 2015). The addition of Synthetic Laminar Silicates (SLS) modifies the structure of the reinforcing filler network. As a result, the fractal exponents characterizing the reinforcement filler network were found to be different when comparing silica-only compounds to silica/SLS compounds (J. G. Meier, 2016). It points towards the formation of a genuine hybrid network, i.e. integration of layers of the SLS into the network of spheres in the silica. The formation of the hybrid filler network should depend on the concentration and on the exfoliation state of the SLS layers. The use of dimethyldioctadecylammonium ions (2HT), instead of CTA as the organic modifier, increases the interlaminar space, thus improving the exfoliation ability of the material, and furthermore, mechanical effects similar to those of OCTO-CTA can be obtained with lower OCTO-2HT concentration. Nevertheless, as a result of the change in the organic modifier and concentration levels, variations of the mixing process have also been necessary in order to obtain comparable results (W. R. Córdova, 2016). Systematic studies of our research will be expounded and discussed in this publication.
