For the past few decades, butyl rubber (IIR) and its derivatives have been used primarily in air barrier applications. Recently other synthetic rubbers like hydrogenated acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (HNBR) has attracted attention for its air barrier properties. A blend of brominated butyl rubber (BIIR) and HNBR can be a potential and novel material with improved technical features as well as excellent processing behavior. In this article, laponite (RD) and bentonite (MT) nano-clays have been used to prepare BIIR-HNBR blend based nanocomposites. A detailed investigation of nanocomposite morphology has been done using the transmission electron microscope results. The improvement in terms of mechanical and gas barrier properties of BIIR-HNBR nano-clay composites over BIIR-carbon black composites have been explored in detail. The air impermeability of BIIR-HNBR blends shows a 20% improvement compared to the reference composite. The results clearly demonstrate the usefulness and effectiveness of the material in gas barrier applications.

The present work aims to investigate the effect of hybrid nanofillers in bromobutyl rubber/epoxidized natural rubber (ENR 50) composites for developing highly air‐impermeable nanocomposites. The nanocomposites with hybrid nanofillers were prepared by a simple melt mixing method, and the morphology of the developed nanocomposites was studied using X‐Ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Improvement in the mechanical, barrier and dynamic properties can be observed for hybrid nanocomposites compared to the composites filled with individual graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs). The strong interfacial attraction between GNP monolayers enhance its aggregation in nanocomposites. While, in the current study the results are showing that the addition of graphene oxide, nanoclay, and nanosilica enhances the dispersion of GNP in the composites. The homogeneous dispersion of GNP nanofillers will develop a tortuous pathway in the composites, which are responsible for their air barrier properties. Bound rubber content and dynamic strain measurements (Payne effect) show a maximum value for binary nanocomposites.

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