Carbon nanostructure preblends and their applications

Abstract

A method for preparing a “preblend” of nanostructured carbon, such as nanotubes, fullerenes, or graphene, and a particulate solid, such as polymer beads, carbon black, graphitic particles or glassy carbon involving wet-mixing and followed by optional drying to remove the liquid medium. The preblend may be in the form of a core-shell powder material with the nanostructured carbon as the shell on the particulate solid core. The preblend may provide particularly improved dispersion of single-walled nanotubes in ethylene-α-olefin elastomer compositions, resulting in improved reinforcement from the nanotubes. The improved elastomer compositions may show simultaneous improvement in both modulus and in elongation at break. The elastomer compositions may be formed into useful rubber articles.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.