CABOT has recently launched a series of new, advanced carbon blacks which are designed to meet today's industrial rubber product manufacturers application needs and to help lower manufacturing and product cost. These new carbon blacks were developed based on identified customer needs. For example, the surface aspect of extruded automotive profile and window channels is very important today. SPHERON~®5000 and 6000 carbon blacks are developed by Cabot to address problems with carbon black related surface defects. These two new carbon blacks have a unique morphology, which can improve the speed of dispersion and ease of mixing considerably compared to well known standard carbon black grades like ASTM N500, N600 or 700 series. This could help to improve eventual dispersion quality and to reduce ' scrap' caused by insufficiently dispersed carbon black. In addition, CABOT has introduced SPHERON "A" carbon blacks to also help address 'scrap' due to carbon black related impurities. The SPHERON "A" carbon black series are produced via a special process resulting in a very low amount of "grit" and inorganic contaminants from the manufacturing process. A crucial element in the development of these products was the availability of a good dispersion assessment tool relevant for extruded, mostly EPDM based, profile compounds. Carbon black dispersion differences can be measured by comparing the number of surface 'defects' found on an extruded tape surface. This paper will discuss the "by CABOT" in-house developed test method based on a tape extrusion set up, camera + light source and image analysis software. Furthermore, some examples will be shown using the extruded tape surface dispersion rating method to demonstrate how the above mentioned new grades perform for dispersion.
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