Sustainable silica from rice husk for the green tire tread | Rubber News

Precipitated silica increases wet traction, decreases rolling resistance and maintains wear life in treads compared to carbon black. Governments adopted tire labeling prompting research into new specialty elastomers, reinforcing fillers, coupling agents, and performance additives.

Improvements in mixing/processing and predictive compound testing also resulted. For the green tire tread, Oriental Silicas Corp. manufactures reinforcing easily dispersible Tokusil-brand 255EG (BET N2 surface area ~170 m2/g) in a granulated form and the highly dispersible Eecosil-brand 350MG microgranule. More demanding targets of tires for high performance, electric and truck/bus vehicles have led to development of high surface area (BET ~210 m2/g) granulated Eecosil 230G and highly dispersible microgranular Eecosil 230MG.

The next generation of reinforcing, highly dispersible silicas is now commercial, namely, the sustainable net zero emissions NZEROSIL-brand silicas starting from bio-renewable rice husk. Literature on the preparation, properties and impurities is reviewed. Three NZEROSIL rice husk silicas made in the production plants are compared to corresponding commercial products made from crystalline sand.

Key silica properties are BET and CTAB surface areas, and Sears silanol surface density. Model tire tread compound performance includes processing, physical and dynamic properties. SEM determination of silica dispersion is quantified by using ImageJ analysis. Granulated NZEROSIL RH-255EG (BET ~170 m2/g) and NZEROSIL RH-230G (BET ~210 m2/g) and microgranular NZEROSIL RH-350MG highly dispersible silica (BET ~170 m2/g) are sustainable silicas for the green tire tread.

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