Preparation Of Epoxidized Solution Polymerized Styrene-Butadiene Rubber And Its Performance Study

SSBR, as one of the most excellent tread compound, has a very brilliant prospect and embodies the environmental affinity and resource saving, which the concept of’green tire’ advocates. However, even the excellent SSBR can not escape from the curse of rubber’magic triangle’. The contradiction that the low rolling resistance and the wet-skid resistance of rubber can not coexist hinders SSBR heading towards the road of high-performance tread rubber. As far as the internal factors, the key technology to release the contradiction is developing excellent rubber-nanocomposite. Though the carbon black, which is used previously, can significantly improve the wear resistance of rubber, but because its surface energy is not enough and the combination of rubber matrix and carbon black mainly depends on physical absorption, the carbon black has poor dispersity and the hysteresis loss of rubber products made from it is big. Nowadays, the high-performance tires, which use silica as their nanofiller, represents the advanced technology of the world. The Si-OH, on the surface of the silica, can have chemical bond with rubber matrix, and consequently it reduces the lag greatly. The silica dispersion and interface control technology, which is used in industrial production of high-performance tires, is being kept a closely guarded secret, and we could see it just from the patents. The epoxidation of SSBR not only can improve the wet-skid resistance, but also can reduce the rolling resistance. It is shown in the research that the epoxidation of SSBR can greatly improve the dispersity of silica and becomes the top choice in preparation of high-performance green tires.A series of epoxidized SBR were successfully prepared by epoxidation using in situ generated peracids. The epoxidation content depends heavily on the reaction temperature, time and reactant mol ratios. An increase in temperature brings about an increase in the epoxidation degree. The epoxidation mainly happens in the 1,4-units by employing 1 H-NMR-spectroscopy, The yield of epoxidation increases as the vinyl content decreases. The glass transition temperature of the SBR increase with the increase of epoxidation content. As the polymer chains are epoxidised there is a stronger interaction between the chains leading to a decrease on the chains mobility. A better interaction between the silica and the epoxidised rubber occurs due the higher polarity character of the epoxidised rubber. With the increase of epoxidation content in SBR, the wet traction property was improved greatly and the rolling resistance decreases.