NBR materials are widely used in oil refining, automotive industry and aviation due to the high tensile strength and elasticity, resistance to dilute acids. During operation with oils and fuels NBR materials undergo aging, which results in deterioration of the properties of materials [1]. The data on compressibility of NBR samples with 0, 1 and 10% zinc oxide and various cross-linking degree immersed in oil at 150°C for 5 hours and in gasoline at room temperature for 5 hours according to ASTM F146 – 12 [2] was collected. The cross-linking degree of NBR was calculated as the ratio of the heats of cure of samples vulcanized at specified temperate and time and unvulcanized samples as described at ISO 11357-5:2013 [3]. Compressibility was measured using a Tinius Olsen H5KS tensile testing machine according to ASTM F36 – 15 [4]. The data demonstrates the influence of vulcanized conditions and zinc oxide as a sulfur vulcanization activator content on compressibility change after deterioration in oil.

A composite material based on expanded graphite (EG) and copper compounds was obtained by natural graphite oxidation with 95% nitric acid, copper (II) nitrate and granular carbamide addition with further rapid heat treatment at three different exfoliation temperatures: 800, 1000 and 1200 °С. It was found that the composition of copper containing graphite material depends on the temperature and the atmosphere of thermal expansion. The formation of copper oxides can be eliminated if rapid heat treatment is conducted in nitrogen at 1200 °С. Thermal conductive properties: thermal diffusivity and specific heat capacity of obtained Cu-expanded graphite samples were measured. It was revealed that the dependence of thermal conductivity (TC) of Cu-graphite material has non-linear character in the studied range of copper content. The incorporation of 3% copper into expanded graphite allows to increase its thermal conductivity by 20% while the further Cu content growth leads to the TC decrease from 6 to 4.5 W/(m∙K). The specific heat capacity is constant at ω(Cu)<3% and reduces in the range (3‒8)% Cu. The advantage of proposed technique of Cu-expanded graphite materials preparation is exclusion graphite intercalation compounds hydrolysis step with further drying because of carbamide addition.

The approach for graphite laminated materials strength properties prediction using contact angle measurements was proposed. The tensile strength of laminated materials made of graphite foil and stainless steel with acrylic and silicone adhesives was measured. It was shown that tensile strength depends on energy characteristics of polymer binders, which can be determined by simple and express wetting method. It was found that the highest values of tensile strength, strength of adhesion and the work adhesion to graphite and stainless steel were provided by acrylic adhesive MBM-5C. The delamination occurred when graphite and stainless steel sheets were connected with low surface energy silicone resin, γ = 23 mJ/m2, what was not able to maintain sufficient adhesion level to the both types of attached surfaces: polar steel and non-polar graphite. It was demonstrated that the calculation of the work of adhesion to polar and non-polar model liquids (water and octane respectively) can be applied to optimize the choice of polymer binder and design of laminated materials. It’s quite important that the proposed technique doesn’t require to determine free surface energy for each type of sheet material which is especially difficult and complex task if laminate consists of several different layers.

The capacities of the wetting method for the characterization of the surface structure of polymers and surfactant adsorption layers on polymer surfaces and also the determination of the energy characteristics of polymer surfaces at different interfaces, which are used to optimize the choice of polymers in the solution of actual practical problems, are demonstrated.

The processes of thermal curing in the epoxy novolak resin-polyamic acid system were investigated by means of high-temperature FTIR spectroscopy. It was shown that, under the conditions studied, the formation of copolymer took place, and the mechanism of cocuring changed depending on the concentration of modifying agent.

A correlation between the energy characteristics of fiber-binder interfaces and tensile strength of polymer composite materials (PCMs) was demonstrated by the example of microplastics based on carbon fiber. A new approach for express prediction of the strength properties of PDMs based on determination of the adhesive characteristics of polymer binders in model systems by the wetting method was proposed and experimentally confirmed.

Doped exfoliated graphite has been prepared via anodic oxidation of natural dispersed graphite in solutions of magnesium, lanthanum, and silver nitrates, followed by heat treatment. The physicochemical properties of the carbon materials thus prepared have been shown to depend on the nature and concentration of the metal nitrate and the electrochemical oxidation and heat-treatment conditions. The thermal behavior of imperfect oxidized graphite, a precursor to exfoliated graphite, has been studied. A method has been proposed for the fabrication of exfoliated graphite/M(O) (M = La, Mg, Ag) composites containing 1–7 at % M and having a large specific surface area: 80–110 m 2 /g.