Lanxess shows tire industry products at expo

Photo by LANXESSLANXESS business unit Rhein Chemie Additives manufactures polymer-bound rubber additives at its Qingdao site in China. The additives are used primarily in the automotive and tire industry.

HANOVER, Germany—Lanxess’s Rhein Chemie business unit will present products for tire manufacturing during the Tire Technology Expo in Hanover, Feb. 20-22, at Booth 4014.

The products include a range of environmentally friendly Rhenodiv release agents, Rhenomark tire marking paints, Rhenoshape tire vulcanization bladders, Rhenogran aramid-fiber masterbatches, and additives, according to a Lanxess release.

In addition to traditional silicone-based products such as Rhenodiv BP-286 and Rhenodiv BP-2864, which are removed after vulcanization from the tires in mechanical washing systems or by means of laser technology, new, silicone-free products such as Rhenodiv BP-166 and Rhenodiv BP-9500 now are available. The products are easier to wash off due to a new, water-soluble release agent, according to Lanxess. The products meet car manufacturer requirements to completely dispense with the use of silicones during the tire production process.

Permanently coated Rhenoshape bladders enable tire manufacturers to vulcanize tires with no additional release agents, eliminating the need to clean the vulcanized tires. This technology ensures that no silicon is used in the tire production process.

Rhein Chemie’s dithiophosphates, including Rhenogran TP-50 and Rhenogran SDT-50, are nitrogen-free accelerators that can replace sulfenamide, thiuram, and carbamate accelerators. The mainly form mono-and disulfidic cross-links, which are more thermally stable and less susceptible to reversion, Lanxess said. When the dithiophosphates are used in parallel with sulfenamide accelerators, this generators cross-linking synergies, which improves the efficiency of the process.

The aramid fiber masterbatches of the Rhenogran P91-40 series provide reinforcing performance for tire compounds under extreme mechanical, dynamic and thermal loads, Lanxess said. The product helps to disperse of the Twaron aramid short fiber pulp evenly into the rubber mixture. Rhenogran P91-40 is not only suitable for use in typical tire polymers such as natural rubber, synthetic rubber, polybutadiene rubber and styrene-butadiene rubber, but also other types of rubber such as EPDM, chloroprene and nitrile butadiene rubber.

With eco/green tire technology, the addition of Vulkanol TOF to a silica-filled compound for tire treads can significantly improve wet grip performance, said Lanxess. At the laboratory level, improvements in rolling resistance were also observed. The results of this study are presented by Hermann-Josef Weidenhaupt, rubber additives expert at Lanxess’s Rhein Chemie business unit, in his presentation “The Way to Improve Wet and Ice Traction of Tires.”