Highly dispersed manganese dioxide nanoparticles anchored on diatomite surface by sol–gel method and its performance on soybean meal‐based adhesive

Nanoparticle enhancement has been used as an effective means to improve the performance of biomass adhesives. However, there is an inevitable problem of stress concentration caused by particle agglomeration and thus the adhesive layer is susceptible to damage. Therefore, in this paper, a sol–gel method was used to generate uniformly distributed manganese dioxide (MnO2) nanoparticles on the surface of diatomite (Dia) and used for the modification of soybean meal based wood adhesives. The results showed that MnO2nanoparticles have been successfully anchored on the surface of Dia during the sol–gel process without agglomeration. MnO2/Dia particles could fill in the adhesive gaps and form hydrogen bonds with soy protein molecules, which ensured that the adhesive wet shear strength was increased by 33% to 0.89 MPa. This study provided an idea for the preparation of highly dispersed nanoparticle reinforced adhesives.