Butadiene Rubber

Why making better tires gets us on the road toward a more sustainable future

So, what happens if a self-driving vehicle gets a flat tire? Future trends embracing smart mobility and efficient transportation require equality robust industry standards for things like tire performance.

Reliable and energy-efficient tires not only make for better cars but also contribute to reducing CO₂ emissions. It turns out it's all in the composition of the rubber used to make the tire. These materials play a major role in improving tire performance and reducing environmental impact.

Where the rubber meets the road

Tires are highly engineered composites. In fact, modern tire rubber only comprises about 10% natural rubber. Mixed in with the natural polymers are a range of synthetic polymers derived from petroleum oil like polyisoprene, poly(styrene-butadiene), polybutadiene and poly(isobutylene-isoprene). The latter are blended in with reinforcing fillers like silica, vulcanizing agents, sulfur, antioxidants, desiccants, and a range of processing oils.

ARLANXEO's BR polymer family, under the Buna® trade name, consist of polybutadiene rubbers from several different categories divided according to their polymerization process and application field.

There are many different layers and parts that go into manufacturing a tire. There's more than meets the eye. They play an important role in the dynamics of functions like steering, braking, and accelerating. So the chemical composition also helps improve safety. A typical passenger tire comes packed with over a dozen components and rubber formulations.

Some of the main goals in the chemical optimization of tire rubber are to achieve better, grip, mitigate tread wear and minimize rolling resistance.

The chemistry behind the sum of all parts

Understanding the anatomy of a tire goes a long way into understanding how they work and how they're manufactured. As a brief breakdown, apart from the tread, a tire comprises of several parts like the belts, sidewall, inner liner, bead, plies and shoulder.

ARLANXEO developed a specific modification and branching technology for Nd-BRs. These offer excellent low-temperature flexibility, abrasion resistance and reduced energy dissipation — offering a great solution for car tire tread compounds to reduce rolling resistance. Another set of grades, Buna® Nd EZ, a new generation of high-cis butadiene rubbers, can remarkably improve the processing performance of rubber compounds and provides high abrasion and flex-cracking resistance.

Beyond the tire

The Buna® BR portfolio also offers innovative solutions, such as CB Li-BR, for a broad range of applications beyond tires, including conveyor belts, footwear soles, and trackpads.

While the Nd-BRs are typically employed in the tire and rubber compounding industry or for sporting goods (e.g. golf balls — giving them high resilience), the Li-BR solution is mainly applied in plastic modification of high-impact polystyrene (HiPS) and mass-solution polymerized acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (mABS) industries..

BR performance is also important for solution-based applications such as impact modification of thermoplastics. Among those amorphous thermoplastic materials is HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene), also known as PS (Polystyrene). Used in low-heat applications, HIPS is a low-cost and tough plastic material often used in applications like food and consumer packaging, product signs and displays, as well as various industrial packaging. Your TV and computer housing as well as household appliance thermoformed linings and waste canisters are all examples of HIPS applications.