Thermo-oxidative aging resistance and mechanism of a macromolecular hindered phenol antioxidant for natural rubber

Macromolecular antioxidant due to its low physical loss, high thermal stability, and good compatibility has been considered to be a promising candidate to inhibit polymer aging. In this study, thermo-oxidative aging resistance and antioxidative mechanism of a macromolecular hindered phenol antioxidant, namely, polyhydroxylated polybutadiene containing thioether binding 2, 2′-thiobis (4-methyl-6-tert-butylphenol) (PHPBT-b-TPH) for natural rubber (NR) vulcanizate was studied in detail by oxidation induction time and accelerated thermal aging tests. The results showed that the antioxidative efficiency of PHPBT-b-TPH was very high. When the amount of PHPBT-b-TPH was only 1 phr, the NR vulcanizate could exhibit excellent thermo-oxidative aging resistance, obviously higher than that of NR vulcanizate with low-molecular-weight antioxidant TPH. After aged at 100°C for 168 h, the retentions of tensile strength and elongation at break of NR vulcanizate with PHPBT-b-TPH were 43.6% and 58.6%, respectively. However, those of NR vulcanizate with TPH were 35.6% and 54.5%. In addition, it was found that both thioether and urethane groups in PHPBT-b-TPH had antioxidative ability and had synergistic effect with hindered phenol. Through our findings, new strategy to design and synthesize the macromolecular antioxidant with multi-antioxidative groups for rubber materials and other polymer materials could be developed.