The microdispersion of silica in filled elastomer vulcanisates was evaluated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM)—network visualisation analysis. In this study, the silica is modified with a wide range of coupling and non-coupling silanes. The silica-filled elastomer samples were microtomed using a glass knife. The resulting TEM micrographs were interpreted and characterised based on aggregates with a cross-sectional area larger than 100 nm². The study showed that silica surface modification has reduced the silica aggregate size by approximately 30–40% compared to an untreated silica-filled elastomer vulcanisate. The TEM micrographs showed evidence of coupling between silica and the elastomer phase and demonstrated a good estimation of silica microdispersion in the elastomer phase. This study has shown that the presence of different surface functionalities has an effect on the silica microdispersion.

中文翻译：

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二氧化硅填充橡胶轮胎胶中硅烷偶联剂的TEM观察

通过透射电子显微镜（TEM）-网络可视化分析评估了填充的弹性体硫化橡胶中二氧化硅的微分散性。在这项研究中，二氧化硅被多种偶联和非偶联硅烷改性。使用玻璃刀对二氧化硅填充的弹性体样品进行切片。基于横截面积大于100 nm ^2的聚集体解释和表征所得的TEM显微照片。研究表明，与未经处理的填充二氧化硅的弹性体硫化橡胶相比，对二氧化硅的表面改性使二氧化硅的聚集体尺寸减小了约30–40％。TEM显微照片显示了二氧化硅与弹性体相之间偶联的迹象，并证明了二氧化硅在弹性体相中的微分散性得到了很好的估计。这项研究表明，不同的表面官能团的存在对二氧化硅的微分散有影响。