Studies on ethylene‐propylene‐diene rubber modification by N‐chlorothio‐N‐butyl‐benzenesulfonamide

N‐Chlorothiosulfonamides have been used to modify ethylene‐propylene‐diene rubber (EPDM) to enhance the compatibility of EPDM in, e.g., natural rubber (NR)/butadiene rubber (BR)/EPDM blends for ozone resistance. N‐Chlorothio‐N‐butyl‐benzenesulfonamide (CTBBS) was selected as a representative for N‐chlorothiosulfonamides. In this study, we found that CTBBS behaves differently with various types of EPDM. Three types of EPDM were selected: ethylidene norbornene (ENB)‐EPDM, hexadiene (HD)‐EPDM, and dicyclopentadiene (DCPD)‐EPDM. HD‐EPDM showed the greatest effectiveness toward CTBBS‐modification. However, this EPDM is not commercially available anymore. On the opposite side, DCPD‐EPDM showed the lowest reactivity so that almost no modification could be realized. The result with ENB‐EPDM was, that upon application of CTBBS to ENB‐EPDM, gelation occurred and, therefore, a low amount of modification was achieved. With the limited modification efficiency for ENB‐EPDM, there is no significant improvement when applying the modified ENB‐EPDM into NR/BR/EPDM blends. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009