Multi-walled carbon nanotubes acting as antioxidant for fluorosilicone rubber

A small addition amount (0.01–4 phr) of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were blended into fluorosilicone rubber (FSR) in order to improve its thermal aging properties, and the paper was investigated from three aspects: (1) the distribution of MWCNTs inside FSR was characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM); (2) the thermal stability of FSR and FSR/MWCNTs was evaluated by the changes of mechanical performance and weight loss in the thermo-oxidative aging process, and the function mechanism of MWCNTs was studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), chemiluminescence (CL), electron spin resonance (ESR) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) measurements; (3) the vulcanization properties of FSR and FSR/MWCNTs were obtained from their vulcanization curves employing three kinds of peroxides as vulcanizers. The results showed MWCNTs, with a homogeneous distribution inside FSR, had significantly improved the antioxidant performance of FSR due to their powerful radical scavenging activity. Moreover, MWCNTs revealed no scavenging effect on the tert -butoxy radical, which ensured that FSR/MWCNTs could be well vulcanized.