Production, Properties, and Application of Detonation Nanocarbon in Elastomeric Composites

Abstract

In the past decades, a new direction has developed rapidly in materials science, connected with the production of ultradispersed powders (UDPs), investigation of their properties, and the creation of materials based on them. Ultradispersed materials, including or consisting of ultrasmall morphological elements (crystals, grains, dispersed inclusions) in a thermodynamically nonequilibrium state, may possess unique properties [1,2] that cannot be achieved by traditional methods. The area of application of UDPs is extremely wide. They are used as functional additives and sintering activators in power metallurgy, as activators in polymerisation reactions, as modifi ers in alloys, composites, polymers, and elastomers, as functional gradient materials, and so on. It is obvious that the greatest effect from using UDPs can be obtained in mass production, in particular in engineering -in the production of rubber mechanical goods, where the product range is measured in hundreds and thousands, and the volume is measured in millions of articles per year.A fair number of various methods for producing UDPs, differing in technological possibilities, in powder quality, in throughput, and in economy, are now well known. At the beginning of the 1980s, the detonation method for synthesising ultradispersed diamond-graphite powder from explosives with a negative oxygen balance that break down with the formation of free carbon was developed and brought to industrial implementation [3][4][5]. This method has been studied in suffi cient detail, and the relationships between the main parameters -the mass of explosive, the chamber volume, and the specifi c heat of the gas -have been determined, making it possible to optimise the process of synthesis and retention of diamond phase [6]. A carbon composite of the necessary phase composition is produced by detonating explosive in a cooled gaseous atmosphere (for example, CO 2 ) in which free oxygen is present in a quantity of no more than 2 vol.%. In some systems of synthesis, water or ice cooling is used. By changing the composition of the cooling medium and the composition of the initial feedstock, the content of diamond modifi cation is regulated (from 0 to 80%) with the required degree of dispersion of the diamond and graphite. Change in the CO 2 content in the cooling atmosphere makes it possible to control the amount of diamonds retained, as the cooling rate affects the graphitisation process: the greater the CO 2 content, the higher is the content of diamonds in the carbon composite. It was revealed that, with a CO 2 content in the cooled medium of less than 40 vol.%, the content of diamond modifi cation in the carbon composite becomes lower than 18 wt.%. With a CO 2 content of over 60 vol.%, the diamond content in the carbon composite increases to 38% and higher [6].Under conditions of pilot-plant and industrial production, powders can be produced that possess the following properties:• diamond-graphite powder (UDP-DG) -a highly porous powder of mat black colour with a particle size o...

Increase in the Effectiveness of Using Nanodispersed Carbon Fillers of Different Nature in Elastomer Composites

“…Owing to the presence on the surface of particles of different oxygen-containing functional groups, BKhPO coal increases the adhesion of rubber compounds to textile materials and their thermooxidative ageing resistance [17]. Highly dispersed DCB, UDDs, fullerene black, and thermolysis residue, possessing a large specific surface, promote an increase in the abrasion resistance of rubber compounds [18].…”