HSE-konforme naphthenische Ole fur Gummi in Reifenlaufflachen

摘要

According to the European Directive 2005/69/EC, tyres manufactured using extender oils which do not comply with the legislated health, safety and environmental (HSE) criterion concerning the content of carcinogenic compounds, may not be placed on the European market as of the 1st of January 2010. Although the legislation is issued by the European Commission and for the European market, its repercussions may be noticed on a global scale, as Europe is one of the target markets for many tyre manufacturers and tyre polymer producers operating outside the European Union. Traditionally, distillate aromatic extracts (DAE) have been the main product used as extender oils in tyre rubbers. However, due to the occurrence of high concentrations of pol-yaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and other polycyclic aromatic compounds (PCA) these oils do not comply with the above legislation and hence cannot in the future be used for tyres aimed for the European market. One product category which has shown good characteristics when used as extender oils in tyre rubbers, is highly refined naphthenic oils. As these oils also fulfil the legislated HSE criterion, they constitute an excellent choice in the quest of replacing DAE as extender oils for the tyre industry. In this work a number of naphthenic oils covering a relatively wide range of viscosity and other physical properties were used as extender oils in two tyre rubber formulations, one based on emulsion SBR as the polymer and carbon black as the filler, the other based on solution SBR and silica as the filler. Other oils included were a treated distillate aromatic extract (TDAE) and a DAE. As the output, the effect of the extender oil on the compounding and the vulcanisation process as well as that on the final material properties of the resulting rubber was investigated. The results confirmed that HSE compliant naphthenic oils offer a high-performance alternative to TDAE, for the replacement of DAE as extender oils in rubbers used by the tyre industry.