Abstract
Certain substances like wax, when incorporated into rubber vulcanisates during mixing prior to vulcanisation are able to bloom and form a surface layer with significant importance in appearance and in protection against ozone. In tyres, this is particularly important in sidewall compounds as ozone protection reflects in its storage, both under static and dynamic conditions, and appearance plays an important role in determining acceptance in today‘s competitive market.
In this paper, the effect of different waxes and their blends on the properties of sidewall compounds with varying natural rubber/butadiene rubber ratios, is reported. It was found that blends of paraffin and microcrystalline waxes with specific carbon chain distributions resulted in optimum properties.
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