Soybean oil (SBO)
is a renewable material used as an alternative
to conventional petroleum-derived oils in the processing of rubber
composites. Upon chemical modifications, such as epoxidation, its
performance in the processing of rubber can be significantly improved,
as indicated by a considerable reduction of the mixing energy. Although
it has been hypothesized that hydrogen bonding between functional
groups (e.g., epoxy) of SBOs and silanols present on the silica surface
plays a key role, there is still a lack of direct evidence supporting
this hypothesis. In this work, it is demonstrated that there is an
overall correlation between the epoxy concentration of SBOs and the
mixing energy, consistent with the long-held hypothesis. In particular,
a correlation between the SBO–silica adsorption affinity and
the degree of epoxidation is revealed by a set of surface-selective
solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR) experiments. In addition,
the surface-selective ssNMR technique demonstrated in this work could
also be used to evaluate the adsorption affinity of other oils and/or
additives more broadly.