The effect of ceria nanoparticles on improving heat resistant properties of fluorosilicone rubber.

ABSTRACT The thermal aging behavior of poly(3,3,3-trifluoropropyl)methylsiloxane was investigated by thermal gravimetric analysis and isothermal aging tests, and the results indicated the degradation mechanism II, oxidation scission of the side groups, played a more important role when the temperature was below 350 °C. The addition of ceria had significantly improved the thermal stability of fluorosilicone rubber (FSR) by inhibiting the oxidation scission. Moreover, two types of ceria including laminar-structure ceria (LS-CeO₂) and nanoparticle ceria (N-CeO₂) were prepared and surface was modified by KH570 and characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscope, and X-ray diffractometer. FSR incorporated with modified LS-CeO₂ and N-CeO₂ revealed a significant improvement on the heat resistant properties. In particular, after having been thermal oxidative aged for 70 h at 250 °C, FSR containing 2 wt % of modified N-CeO₂ maintained 72.6% of tensile strength and 63.9% of elongation at break, respectively, while FSR without ceria completely failed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 44117. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]