Today I want to talk about rubber or tires. What are they made of and how do they travel to our shelves? Many people mistakenly think that everything is based on oil, many are even sure that it is 90% of it, but this is not entirely true. AT the dawn of their appearance, tires were almost 100% a product of nature...

Before I tell you about modern tires, let me dig into history and tell you about rubber at the dawn of its production.

What is rubber?

Let it be known that the main component of rubber is made from rubber, and this is a very natural material that is extracted from rubber trees. In southern Africa, such trees have existed for a very long time; it is even difficult to calculate their age. However, Europeans became acquainted with them in the 16th century, when Christopher Columbus returned to his homeland.

If you break down the word “RUBBER” into its components, you get “KAU” - plant, tree, “UCHU” - cry, flow. That is, if literally translated, this is a “crying tree”, from the language of the Indians of the Amazon River tribe. However, there is also a scientific name - “CASTILLA”, it grows on the banks of the Amazon River in the impenetrable jungle.

"CASTILLA" is a very tall tree; it grows 50 meters in height and blooms all year round. In the skin, leaves and inflorescences, there is a lot of so-called milky juice, which contains natural rubber. Due to the fact that these trees are very large, branches or flowers often broke, and at the point of the break the tree “cryed” with such sap.

These are the two main plants that produce natural rubbers. In Central Asia, as well as on the shores of South America, Brazil, Peru, and the island of Sri Lanka, there are entire plantations of such trees that exist for only one purpose - to extract this juice! This has been an established business for a long time.

The top five “popular” plants also include: “CASSAVO”, “TALCO TREE” and the “IN-TIZI” shrub. All of them are sources for subsequent rubber production.

As I wrote above, rubber was brought to Europe a very long time ago, but K. MACKINTOSH decided to use it for the first time, not to be confused with computers from APPLE, he was the first to impregnate a raincoat with this composition, thanks to which it turned out to be practically waterproof . In cold weather it became dense and waterproof, but in hot weather it became a little “sticky”. It should be noted that MACKINTOSH learned this method from the Indians from the Amazon; for several centuries they had been impregnating their clothes, as well as plants needed for the production of house roofs, with rubber - the waterproof characteristics increased significantly.

So we indirectly owe the appearance of rubber to the Amazon Indians! Watch the short video.

Rubber production

Well, here we come to the most interesting part - the production of rubber itself, and these are not necessarily car wheels, rubber is now used everywhere, even in hair ties.

Once the rubber sap is collected, it is still a long way from producing rubber. Initially, latex is produced from it, this is an intermediate link. However, pure latex is now used everywhere, from medicine to industry.

The juice is poured into large vats and stirred in large vats of acid, usually for 10 hours. After which it hardens. This is already latex.

Afterwards it is passed through special rollers, thus removing excess moisture. The result is a long and fairly wide ribbon.

This tape is run under special knives and crushed. If you look at this composition, it looks like an overcooked omelette.

I burn this air mass in large ovens under the influence of fairly high temperatures - 13 minutes. Now it turns out elastic and biscuit-like, it is pressed into blocks and sent to production.

Of course, you won’t find the exact formula for the production of rubber, much less tires, on the internet; all this is kept strictly secret. However, the essence of the process has not changed over the past 100 years and has long been known to everyone.

To make rubber, you need to take these latex briquettes and vulcanize them. Sulfur and other “hidden” ingredients are also added to this composition. All this is added to a special boiler, heated, mixed, and after such manipulations rubber appears.

As soon as it is heated to 120 degrees, it is rolled out with special rollers to thin strips. That's where it cools down.

After these strips, read the article.

Modern tires fortires

In the modern world, tires for wheels are made mainly of rubber. But it can be not only natural, but also synthetic. Yes, now we have learned to produce synthetic rubbers. Rubber has the largest share in the composition, usually 40-50% of the total mass.

Next, soot (or carbon black) is added to the rubber. The mass fraction of the wheel is approximately 25-30% of the total mass. It is added for greater structural strength, as well as to withstand high temperatures. Soot, as it were, holds rubber molecules together making them much stronger, they can easily withstand friction and temperature during emergency braking. Without this carbon (soot), tires would run 10-15 times less.

The next additive is silicic acid. Some manufacturers replace carbon with it, since it is cheaper and has high molecular adhesion properties. However, others completely refuse it, stating that it provides insufficient wear resistance! However, if you still analyze the composition of many leading companies, then it is present in the composition, it improves grip on wet roads. Information varies on how much is added, but if you take the average it is approximately 10%.

Other additives are resins or oils. There are more of them in winter tires and fewer in summer tires; they give a “softening role” to the rubber and prevent it from being so “oaky.” This is especially important for winter options. Adding about 10-15%.

Well, the last and very important thing is the specific secret compounds of the manufacturer, there are also about 10% of them, but they can greatly change the parameters of the finished tire. They are kept, of course, in strict confidence.

To be fair, it is worth noting that there is also a metal thread-like frame, but I won’t mention it here, it’s a slightly different story.

This is exactly how rubber (tires) are made for the wheels of our cars. Although synthetic rubbers are used, they cannot yet compete with natural ones, so global changes in the structure of tires are not expected for a long time.

Now there is a full video, in it you will find the answer - which is better, synthetic or natural material.

I’ll end here, read our AUTOBLOG, I think it was interesting.

Alcadienes

HEVEA BRAZILIAN

(Hevea brasiliensis)

Rubber plants

A rubber extractor coagulating the collected latex by first collecting it on a stick and then holding it over a vat of smoke

Rubber processing on a plantation in Eastern Cameroon

Rubbers- natural or synthetic materials characterized by elasticity, water resistance and electrical insulating properties, from which rubber is obtained through special processing. Natural rubber is obtained from a milky-white liquid called latex, - milky sap of rubber plants.

In technology, rubber is used to make tires for vehicles, airplanes, and bicycles; Rubbers are used for electrical insulation, as well as for the production of industrial goods, medical devices and latex mattresses.

Chemical properties

1928

Diene syntheses (Diels-Alder reaction)

Rubber

Vulcanization of rubber

Natural and synthetic rubbers are used mainly in the form of rubber, as it has significantly higher strength, elasticity and a number of other valuable properties. To obtain rubber, rubber is vulcanized. Many scientists have worked on the vulcanization of rubber.

In 1834, the German chemist Ludersdorff first discovered that rubber could be made solid by treating it with a solution of sulfur in turpentine.

American merchant Charles Goodyear was one of the unsuccessful entrepreneurs who spent his entire life chasing wealth. He became interested in the rubber business and, sometimes remaining penniless, persistently searched for a way to improve the quality of rubber products. Goodyear discovered a method for producing non-sticky, durable and elastic rubber by mixing rubber with sulfur and heating.

In 1843, Hancock, independently of Goodyear, found a way to vulcanize rubber by immersing it in molten sulfur, and a little later Parkes discovered the possibility of producing rubber by treating rubber with a solution of semichloride sulfur ( cold vulcanization).

The Englishman Robert William Thomson, who invented the “patent air wheels” in 1846, and the Irish veterinarian John Boyd Denlob, who stretched a rubber tube onto the wheel of his young son’s bicycle, had no idea that they thereby marked the beginning of the use of rubber in the tire industry.

Modern rubber production technology is carried out in the following stages:

From a mixture of rubber with sulfur, fillers (carbon black is a particularly important filler) and other substances, the desired products are formed and subjected to heating. Under these conditions, sulfur atoms attach to the double bonds of rubber macromolecules and “cross-link” them, forming disulfide “bridges.” As a result, a giant molecule is formed, having three dimensions in space - like length, width and thickness. The polymer acquires a spatial structure:

Such rubber will, of course, be stronger than unvulcanized rubber. The solubility of the polymer also changes: rubber, although slowly, dissolves in gasoline, rubber only swells in it. If you add more sulfur to rubber than is needed to form rubber, then during vulcanization the linear molecules will be “cross-linked” in very many places, and the material will lose its elasticity and become hard - the result will be ebonite. Before the advent of modern plastics, ebonite was considered one of the best insulators.

Vulcanized rubber has greater strength and elasticity, as well as greater resistance to temperature changes than unvulcanized rubber; rubber is impermeable to gases, resistant to scratching, chemical attack, heat and electricity, and also shows a high coefficient of sliding friction with dry surfaces and a low coefficient with wet ones.

Vulcanization accelerators improve the properties of vulcanizers, reduce vulcanization time and consumption of basic raw materials, and prevent over-vulcanization. Inorganic compounds (magnesium oxide MgO, lead oxide PbO and others) and organic compounds are used as accelerators: dithiocarbamates (dithiocarbamic acid derivatives), thiurams (dimethylamine derivatives), xanthogenates (xanthogenic acid salts) and others.

Accelerator activators vulcanization facilitates the interaction reactions of all components of the rubber mixture. Basically, zinc oxide ZnO is used as activators.

Antioxidants(stabilizers, antioxidants) are introduced into the rubber mixture to prevent “aging” of the rubber.

Fillers- increase the physical and mechanical properties of rubber: strength, wear resistance, abrasion resistance. They also help to increase the volume of raw materials, and, consequently, reduce rubber consumption and reduce the cost of rubber. Fillers include various types of soot (carbon black), mineral substances (chalk CaCO 3, BaSO 4, gypsum CaO 2H 2O, talc 3MgO 4SiO 2 2H 2O, quartz sand SiO 2).

Plasticizers(softeners) - substances that improve the technological properties of rubber, facilitate its processing (reduce the viscosity of the system), and provide the opportunity to increase the content of fillers. The introduction of plasticizers increases the dynamic endurance of rubber and “abrasion” resistance. Oil refining products (fuel oil, tar, paraffins), substances of plant origin (rosin), fatty acids (stearic, oleic) and others are used as plasticizers.

The strength and insolubility of rubber in organic solvents are related to its structure. The properties of rubber are also determined by the type of raw material. For example, rubber made from natural rubber is characterized by good elasticity, oil resistance, wear resistance, but at the same time is not very resistant to aggressive environments; rubber made from SKD rubber has even higher wear resistance than from NK. SKS styrene butadiene rubber improves wear resistance. Isoprene rubber SKI determines the elasticity and tensile strength of rubber, and chloroprene rubber determines its resistance to oxygen.

In Russia, the first large enterprise in the rubber industry was founded in St. Petersburg in 1860, later called “Triangle” (since 1922 - “Red Triangle”). Other Russian factories of rubber products were founded after him: “Kauchuk” and “Bogatyr” in Moscow, “Provodnik” in Riga and others.

Application of rubber in industrial products

Rubber is of great economic importance. Most often it is used not in its pure form, but in the form of rubber. Rubber products are used in technology for insulating wires, making various tires, in the military industry, in the production of industrial goods: shoes, artificial leather, rubberized clothing, medical products...

Rubber is a highly elastic, durable compound, but less ductile than rubber. It is a complex multicomponent system consisting of a polymer base (rubber) and various additives.

The largest consumers of rubber technical products are the automotive industry and agricultural engineering. The degree of saturation with rubber products is one of the main signs of perfection, reliability and comfort of mass types of engineering products. The mechanisms and assemblies of modern cars and tractors contain hundreds of items and up to a thousand pieces of rubber parts, and simultaneously with the increase in the production of machines, their rubber capacity increases.

Types of rubber and their application

Depending on the structure, rubber is divided into non-porous (monolithic) and porous.

Non-porous rubber made on the basis of butadiene rubber. It has high abrasion resistance. The wear life of sole rubber is 2-3 times longer than the wear life of sole leather. The tensile strength of rubber is less than that of natural leather, but the elongation at break is many times higher than that of natural sole leather. Rubber does not allow water to pass through and practically does not swell in it.

Rubber is inferior to leather in terms of frost resistance and thermal conductivity, which reduces the heat-protective properties of shoes. And finally, rubber is absolutely air- and vapor-tight. Non-porous rubber can be sole, leather-like, and transparent.

Conventional non-porous rubber is used to make molded soles, overlays, heels, half heels, heels and other parts of the bottom of shoes.

Porous rubbers used as soles and platforms for spring, autumn and winter shoes.

Leather-like rubber- this is rubber for the bottom of shoes, made on the basis of rubber with a high styrene content (up to 85%). The increased styrene content gives rubbers hardness, as a result of which it is possible to reduce their thickness to 2.5-4.0 mm while maintaining good protective functions.

The performance properties of leather-like rubber are similar to those of natural leather. It has high hardness and ductility, which allows you to create a shoe footprint of any shape. Leather-like rubber stains well when finishing shoes. It has high wear resistance due to good abrasion resistance and resistance to repeated bending. The wear life of shoes with soles made of leather-like rubber is 179-252 days in the absence of crumbling in the toe.

The disadvantage of this rubber is its low hygienic properties: high thermal conductivity and lack of hygroscopicity and air tightness.

Leather-like rubber is produced in three varieties: non-porous structure with a density of 1.28 g/cm3, porous structure with a density of 0.8-0.95 g/cm3, and porous structure with a fibrous filler, the density of which is not higher than 1.15 g /cm 3. Porous rubbers with fibrous fillers are called “ leather fiber" These rubbers are similar in appearance to genuine leather. Thanks to the fiber filler, their heat-shielding properties increase, they are lightweight, elastic, and have a good appearance. Leather-like rubbers are used as soles and heels in the manufacture of summer and spring-autumn shoes using the adhesive fastening method.

Transparent rubber is a translucent material with a high content of natural rubber. It is distinguished by high abrasion resistance and hardness, and is superior in wear resistance to all types of rubber. Transparent rubbers are produced in the form of molded soles (together with heels), with deep corrugation on the running side.

A type of transport rubber is Styronip containing more rubber. Styronip's resistance to repeated bending is more than three times higher than that of conventional non-porous rubber. Styronip is used in the manufacture of shoes using the adhesive fastening method.

Rubber with a porous structure has closed pores, the volume of which, depending on the type of rubber, ranges from 20 to 80% of its total volume. These rubbers have a number of advantages compared to non-porous rubbers: increased softness, flexibility, high shock-absorbing properties, and elasticity.

The disadvantage of porous rubber is the ability to shrink and also crumble in the toe part upon impact. To increase the hardness of porous rubbers, polystyrene resins are introduced into their composition.

Currently, the production of new types of porous rubbers has been mastered: porocrepa And vulcanite. Porokrep has a beautiful color, elasticity, and increased strength. Vulcanite is a porous rubber with fibrous fillers, which has high wear resistance and good heat protection. Porous rubbers are used as soles for spring, autumn and winter shoes. A method of producing raw rubber blanks in the form of a continuous strip of the desired thickness and width. Calendering improves the physical and chemical properties of the rubber mixture; the consumption of rubber mixtures and the quality of products depend on it.

Nature and man

For the majority of people inhabiting our dear planet, a material such as rubber plays a significant role throughout life, from a microcrack in product number two to the gloves on the hands of a pathologist. The most common starting material for rubber production is the milky sap of the Brazilian Hevea plant, which contains natural latex. Of course, Hevea is not the most common tree in the world, and it is unlikely that you will immediately find it when you leave your house. But the same milky juice can be seen by making an incision in the green pod of an opium poppy or picking a dandelion - a white rim of thick liquid will immediately appear on the stem. This is natural latex. Rubber is obtained from it, about a third of which is in the latex of Brazilian Hevea.

The word "rubber" comes from "kauchu", which means "tear of the milky tree" in the language of the Amazonian Indians. After the invention of the vulcanization process by Charles Nelson Goodyear, an American enthusiastic experimenter, and as a result of the experiments the very same rubber (patent dated June 3, 1844) that is now used both far and wide, the extraction of latex from Hevea acquired an industrial scale.

From 1870 to 1912, the so-called rubber fever raged in full swing in Latin American countries. Collecting latex has become one of the most profitable legal businesses in these countries. Money began to be counted in stacks. The rubber nouveau riche of Brazil, Peru and neighboring countries went to great lengths, spending their income not on the development of production, but on the sweet life. And, as they say, what they fought for, that’s what they ran into.

Suddenly, the leaves of the rubber trees were infected with a macrocyclus fungus, and in an attempt to resist the disease, they stopped producing latex. Huge plantations fell into disrepair. The fungus turned out to be extremely resistant to all kinds of means of control, easily mutated and wanted to sneeze despite the efforts of the planters to win back their sources of sweet life.

Both large Latin American rubber producers and foreign ones, such as Henry Ford, who acquired a huge hevea plantation in Brazil in order to save money by traveling around British rubber supplies with his own goat, suffered, sometimes to the point of complete ruin. The rubber fever passed overnight, leaving rich planters crying and poor workers starving.

While Brazil and others like it reveled in the sudden collapse of wealth, erected palaces and bathed in champagne, enterprising people in Europe were hard at work thinking about the prospects.

In 1879, the Englishman Henry Wickham secretly, not afraid of the law providing for the death penalty for such actions, stole a large batch of precious Hevea seeds, and in the twenties of the last century, extensive plantations of the rubber tree were developed in Malaysia, a former British colony. Hevea was then spread to other equatorial countries in the region.

Unlike Latin America, there were no barriers to Hevea cultivation in Southeast Asia. Soon, thanks to the absence of a microcyclus and the cheapness of labor, Asian rubber became much cheaper than Latin American rubber. However, there is an opinion that the fungus was simply late on the road and will eventually reach Asia. The amount of rubber supplied to Latin American countries currently does not cover their own needs. Large companies such as Michelin are spending huge sums of money searching for ways to combat the fungus, but nothing radical has yet been found.

In parallel with such research, alternative sources of latex are being sought. And the most promising of them turned out to be a garden pest - the dandelion. More precisely, its Kazakh relative is Kok-sagyz, nicknamed by Western scientists the “Russian dandelion.”

There have already been attempts to obtain rubber from kok-saghyz. During World War II, when the Japanese army invaded Southeast Asia and captured the European rubber-producing colonies, rubber product manufacturers were forced to turn again to Latin American planters. However, the volumes of latex they collected were depressingly small. And war is not only about the courage of soldiers, but also about material and technical equipment. Other sources of latex were urgently needed.

And then in the USA, Europe and the Soviet Union they began to cultivate kok-saghyz, increasing its yield with zinc sulfate. The ineradicable weed, the scourge of gardens and vegetable gardens, has become an important strategic crop. The milky juice of the Russian dandelion contains about 14% rubber, which is half as much as the rubber latex. However, it is unpretentious, not susceptible to diseases and is favorable to the efforts of scientists to develop varieties more suitable for production needs.

When the war ended, rubber product manufacturers returned to their previous Asian sources of rubber. The main consumers of raw materials for rubber production have been and remain today car tire manufacturers. The largest of them are Michelin, Bridgestone, Continental, Goodyear and Dunlop, which have captured and peacefully divided among themselves more than half of the world's tire production volumes.

So, the invaders were defeated, and everything returned to normal. Asian countries continued to collect latex, while South American countries continued to look for ways to combat the fungus.

But the development of production and the increase in consumption, since every adult wanted to steer independently, led to the fact that the agricultural areas allocated for rubber plantations in Asian countries were no longer enough.

In addition, from the dictionary of financiers and stockbrokers, such a word as volatility, an indicator of price variability, has leaked into everyday speech. For example, if at the beginning of 2011 the cost of a kilogram of rubber jumped to $6 per kilogram, it has now fallen to $2.

There are many reasons for this, from weather conditions to traders' speculation on the stock exchange. We needed a source of rubber with a predictable price. And then we remembered the dandelion again.

Ford Motor, not wanting to step on the Brazilian rake again, together with Ohio State University, began to study the possibilities of industrial production of rubber from dandelions. The Japanese company Bridgestone and the American Cooper Tire & Rubber joined the project. A team of scientists led by Katrina Cornish was formed and a seven-year research plan was approved.

They are carried out in two directions: genetic modification and traditional selection with the aim of cultivating the field plant. Latex is extracted from the main rhizome of kok-saghyz. Geneticists are busy making the plant taller, and its leaves not sloping, but erect. Then agricultural harvesting equipment can easily grab it and pull it out of the ground along with the roots.

Despite the fact that the dandelion is a plant that requires little care and is undemanding, there are many insects and small rodents that happily eat its seeds.

“We discovered that ants, worms, and mice feed on these seeds in the field,” Katrina Cornish justifies the need to find ways to protect crops. Some ways have now been found, such as placing a protective layer of clay around the seeds, or mixing them with sterilized Kentucky bluegrass seeds to entice hungry pests to feast on the latter.

At the experimental site, Katrina Cornish's team achieved an impressive result: over one and a half thousand kilograms of rubber per hectare. This indicator is quite consistent with the yield of selected Asian Hevea plantations. However, it was achieved, as they say, in greenhouse conditions. And now the Russian dandelion has been sent for field trials, which are being carried out on a farm of about eight acres (three and a bit hectares).

According to Chuck Yurkovich, head of research and development at Cooper Tire & Rubber, there is a real prospect of soon "having a stable source of natural rubber at a sustainable cost, which will help us break out of the regime of rampant price fluctuations."

In parallel, research work is being carried out in the countries of the European Community, in particular in the Netherlands, with the support of the EU and Indian tire manufacturers - India's Apollo Tires Ltd. and the Czech Republic - Mitas a.s., as well as in Germany, at the Munster Institute of Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology of the Fraunhofer Society. European scientists focus on traditional selection. They use the method of spot sowing, when the seeds are placed in the ground one at a time, at the same distance from each other.

Currently, the experimental fields of the University of Münster have yielded over five hundred kilograms of rubber per hectare, and project manager Dirk Prufer is confident that in the future it will be possible to reach a thousand.

Of course, the chemical industry does not stand still. Artificial rubber substitutes have long been invented. But in the same tire industry there is still no way to abandon natural sources. The content of natural rubber in passenger car tires ranges from 10 to 40 percent. Tires for heavy-duty vehicles, aircraft and construction equipment must contain an even higher percentage. Only natural rubber has sufficient resistance to temperature fluctuations, as well as tensile strength, which is especially important in the case of the formation of microcracks during operation.

So it turns out that the modern world has high hopes for the little dandelion, whose status is steadily changing from a garden pest to the hope and support of global industry. Katrina Cornish is confident that after the completion of the seven-year research program in 2020, the era of Russian dandelion exploration of the country's agricultural spaces will begin.

Irina Granovskaya

Some tire companies rely on innovative compound materials, while others change the physical structure of products in 3D format. An example of this is Goodyear tires based on soybean oil, Pirelli products made from Nizhnekamsk varieties of isoprene and divinylstyrene rubbers, and Bridgestone models for all-wheel drive SUVs. What's better?

Goodyear: Soybean oil benchmark

Goodyear is increasing the environmental friendliness of its tires. Leading engineer Voloshinek said that last year there was a serial launch of products where the protector is made on the basis of soybean oil. Thanks to innovation, the share of petroleum products was reduced by 60%. Models from the all-season Assurance WeatherReady line began to meet new environmental standards, while their technical characteristics became better adapted to a wide range of temperatures.

Initially, soybean oil was considered as an additive to rubber compounds. But after the Ford concern with the Soybean Production Council received significant results using soy products, the company's specialists deepened and accelerated research in this area. Thanks to triglycerides, oil-based mixtures have become a complete substitute for compound bases.

Thermoplasticity, elasticity and energy-saving mixing

For all-season products, the thermoplasticity indicator is important, since the adhesion of the tire contact zone with wet, dry, snowy, and ice-covered track surfaces directly depends on the characteristics of the rubber. Usually it is not possible to avoid deterioration of any indicators. Therefore, the optimal balance between tire and road adhesion determined the choice of soybean oil.

The elasticity of soybean oil-based tires, their plasticity, and cost-effectiveness compared to petroleum products have become other driving factors for replacement. Easy mixing of the oil with the components of the compound, which includes silicon dioxide and polymers, is due to the reduced viscosity and the presence of polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Mixing uses less energy than when using petroleum products. The company is considering the use of high oleic oil, which is used in the food industry. Experiments are now being carried out to determine its quality and suitability for tire production.

Instead of natural rubber for tires - artificial from Tatarstan

The petrochemical complex of Tatarstan has become a gold mine for entrepreneurs. Due to rising prices for natural rubber, its high-quality substitutes are increasingly of interest to tire manufacturers. That is why the Nizhnekamskneftekhim company signed a long-term contract in December 2017 for the supply of artificial rubber to the Pirelli concern.

Minnikhanov, President of Tatarstan, noted that over 10 years the volume of Pirelli supplies has increased 3 times. Now Nizhnekamsk and Italians cooperate not only on manufactured products, but are jointly developing promising types of rubber planned for mass production. Due to the fact that Pirelli is one of the five largest tire manufacturers (19 factories, supplies to 160 countries), the need for synthetic rubber and plastic will allow the production capacity of Nizhnekamskneftekhim to be maximally loaded.

It is planned to expand the production of SKI-3 isoprene rubber to 330 thousand tons per year. In the near future, until 2021, we will increase the production of all types of artificial rubber to a million tons. Azat Bikmurzin, head of Tatneftekhiminvest Holding, reports that in 2 years they will synthesize 60 thousand tons of divinylstyrene rubber for the production of new generation tires. This will include 5 brands designed for tires of different types and seasons.

Bridgestone tires for all-wheel drive crossovers and SUVs

The company focused on the exterior of its products. It released a new studless winter tire Blizzak DM-Z3З. The innovative option is designed for owners of all-wheel drive vehicles. The difference between the new model and the old ones is the complex combination of microscopic pores and special microgrooves, which enhance protection against aquaplaning and prevent sliding on ice. The contact of the tread with the road surface is accompanied by the absorption of moisture (the “sponge” effect), after which it is removed through a micro-drainage system.

The tread is equipped with edges and lamellas in 3D format, which have support inserts to prevent their deformation. Thanks to these innovations, the pressure in the contact zone is optimized and distributed evenly. The edge of the 3D block enhances the tire's grip on sections of the road with crumbling snow and ice, which enhances the passage of the section.

The search for cheap raw materials for production prompted the company to begin building a laboratory in Mecklenburg (Germany) for the cultivation of Russian dandelion, its subsequent use in the tire industry instead of natural rubber. It is expected that the cost of launching the project will be 35 million euros, and the milky juice of dandelion will successfully replace the juice of hevea from tropical regions. An important role is played by reducing the cost of transporting raw materials and eliminating the burning of tropical plantations to expand the areas for growing rubber trees.