The study of thermal & mechanical properties of EPDM compounded with TiO₂

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>
<jats:p>This study attempts to investigate the usage of titanium dioxide as a viable nanofiller for fabrication of ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) nanocomposites used as thermal insulators. For this study, three different filler loadings (1, 3, 5 % wt.) of titanium dioxide nanofiller are incorporated into the polymer matrix to form the nanocomposites. The thermal and mechanical characteristics of the resulting nanocomposites were compared to EPDM which has not been compounded with TiO<jats:sub>2</jats:sub> nanofiller (neat). The thermal characteristics of the polymers were tested using thermogravimetric analysis. Mechanical parameters of the polymers were evaluated via tensile testing with dog-bone specimens according to ASTM D638 standards. Thermal performance of TiO<jats:sub>2</jats:sub>-impregnated EPDM nanocomposites showed definite improvements, with 1% wt. nanofiller loading having 1 °C improvement over neat EPDM at 5% weight loss and 1 °C improvement at 50% weight loss respectively. Tensile testing showed lower elongation at break (EB) and higher tensile strength (TS) characteristics for nanocomposites with 1% wt. & 3% wt. nanofiller loading compared to neat EPDM. At 5% wt. nanofiller loading, higher EB and lower TS readings were recorded for the nanocomposite, likely resulting from uneven nanoparticle distribution during sample fabrication due to nanofiller particle agglomeration.</jats:p>