Improvement of the durability of hydrogenated nitrile butadiene rubber sheets by adding phosphorylated cellulose nanofibers and metal (meth)acrylate

• Oven-dried rubber/nanocellulose mixtures can be used to prepare composite sheets. • Abrasion resistance and durability were improved by compounding with nanocellulose. • Nanocellulose showed better properties than carbon black for the rubber composites. • The rubber/nanocellulose/zinc methacrylate composites showed the best performance. Nanocellulose materials are expected to partly replace petroleum-derived carbon black in rubber composites for the short-term improvement of their properties. In this study, phosphorylated cellulose nanofibers (P-CNFs) and hydrogenated nitrile-butadiene rubber (H NBR) were oven-dried with or without metal (meth)acrylates, and the once-dried mixtures were kneaded and pressed to prepare cross-linked H NBR/P-CNF/metal (meth)acrylate composite sheets. Neat H NBR and carbon-black-containing H NBR composite sheets were prepared as references. In addition to the tensile and dynamic thermomechanical properties, the, hardness, abrasion resistance, degree of hysteresis loss, and hot water/organic solvent resistance of the composite sheets were evaluated. The properties of the P-CNF containing composite sheets were better than those of the neat H NBR sheet and carbon-black-containing composite sheets at the same P-CNF or carbon black content. The H NBR/P-CNF/zinc methacrylate composite sheets showed the best performance in terms of not only the above properties, but also the hot water resistance, tensile properties, and abrasion resistance.