Improved thermal stability and heat-aging resistance of silicone rubber via incorporation of UiO-66-NH2

The metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as emerging materials have attracted worldwide attention. In this study, a novel strategy by blending classic MOFs material UiO-66-NH2 to efficiently enhance the thermal stability and thermal aging resistance of silicone rubber (SR) was proposed. The experimental results indicated that very low dosage (0.25–1.5 part) of UiO-66-NH2 addition could effectively increase the thermal-oxidative stability of SR, which was proved by that the values of T5 (temperature at 5% weight loss) and Tm (the maximum thermal decomposition rate temperature) of SR were greatly increased by 43.4 °C and 97.9 °C, respectively. Moreover, the retention rate of elongation at break and tensile strength of SR with 1.5 part UiO-66-NH2 could remain about 72% and 57% after 288 h treatment in 210 °C. The possible heat resistance mechanism was explored by processing torque (PT) and thermogravimetry-mass spectrometry (TG-MS), whose results suggested that even very low addition of UiO-66-NH2 could efficiently inhibit degradation of SR chains and obstruct heat transfer due to its low thermal conductivity. This study provided a novel strategy to enhance thermal stability of rubber materials, and might open up new filed for polymer material processing.