Comparison of SBR/BR Blend Compound and ESBR Copolymer Having Same Butadiene Contents

Abstract

The rapid development of the automobile industry is an important factor that led to the dramatic development of synthetic rubber. The tread part of tire that comes in direct contact with the road surface is related to the service life of the tire. Rubber compounds used in tire treads are often blended with SBR (styrene-butadiene rubber) and BR (butadiene rubber) to satisfy physical property requirements. However, when two or more kinds of rubber are blended, phase separation and silica dispersion problems may occur due to non-uniform mixing of the rubber. Therefore, in this study, we synthesized an SBR copolymer with the same composition as that of a typical SBR/BR blend compound by controlling butadiene content during ESBR (emulsion styrene-butadiene rubber) synthesis. Subsequently, silica filled compounds were manufactured using the synthesized ESBR, and their mechanical properties, dynamic viscoelasticity, and crosslinking density were compared with those of the SBR/BR blended compound. When the content of butadiene was increased in the silica filled compound, the cure rate accelerated due to an increased number of allylic positions, which typically exhibit higher reactivity. However, the T-2 compound with increased butadiene content by synthesis less likely to show an increase in crosslink density due to poor silica dispersion. In addition, the T-3 compound containing high cis BR content showed high crosslink density due to its monosulfide crosslinking structure. Because of the phase separation, SBR/BR blend compounds were easily broken and showed similar M100% and M300% values as those of other compounds despite their high crosslink density. However, the developed blend showed excellent abrasion resistance due to the high cis-1,4 butadiene content and low rolling resistance due to the high crosslink density.