Self-healable and recyclable nitrile rubber based on thermoreversible ionic crosslink network

In this work, commercial carboxylated nitrile butadiene rubber (XNBR) was ionically crosslinked with zinc thiolate forming reversible ionic salt bonding between carboxy groups (COOH) in XNBR chains and Zn2+ ions from zinc thiolate. The reversible nature of the ionic crosslinks allows rearrangement of rubber molecular chains under an external heat and provides self-healing capability to the materials. The amount of zinc thiolate was varied at five levels (10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 per hundred rubber (phr) to assess the maximum reaction between COOH and Zn2+ ion for the formation of ionic crosslink networks. Evidence that ionic crosslinks formed within the materials was determined by the increased of curing torque and the chemical interaction was identified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. An equilibrium swelling testing quantitatively measured the ionic crosslink density within the material and XNBR with 30-phr zinc thiolate showed the highest ionic crosslink density. The results revealed that, damaged XNBR with 30 phr zinc thiolate able to recover 98% of its initial properties under thermal healing at 150°C for 10 min. Furthermore, the material can be reprocessed and recycled for three times without compromising its initial properties. Perhaps, the tensile strength increased 360% at approximately 23 MPa, after third recycling process. In addition, the self-healing XNBR also have excellent weldability on the damage sample, which shows high potential for repairing of existing rubber products installed in heavy engineering applications. © 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.