Graphene in rubber offers significant performance benefits

ERJ staff report (DS)

Princeton, New Jersey -- Researchers at Princeton University have been granted a patent on a graphene-rubber composite, which offers similar properties to a carbon nanotube composite, but at much lower cost.

Graphene is a form of carbon, related to Buckyballs and carbon nanotubes, in which the carbon atoms form a strong, densely packed sheet of atoms in a hexagonal arrangement, rather than balls or tubes.

U.S. Patent 7745528 is granted to the trustees of Princeton, and the inventors are named as Prof. Robert K. Prud'homme and colleagues at the department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University.

The researchers investigated graphene as a functional filler in various types of elastomer, including NR, SBR, styrenic block co-polymers. Such nanocomposites have high strength, high modulus, electrically conductive, low gas permeation and high thermal stability.

The inventors said, "Suitable elastomeric polymers include but are not limited to acrylonitrile-butadiene copolymer, elastomers having triblock copolymer architecture, poly(styrene-b-butadiene) copolymers, BR and styrene-butadiene copolymer (SBR) vulcanizates, natural and synthetic rubber, butadiene and acrylonitrile copolymer (NBR), polybutadiene, polyesteramide, chloroprene rubbers (CR) and mixtures thereof."

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Patent from US patent office

Graphene-Rubber Nanocomposites Possess Qualities Like Carbon Nanotube Composites But Are Much Cheaper To Make from Before it's news