George S. Whitby Award for Distinguished Teaching and Research - New Strategies of Silica and Carbon Black Dispersion in Tire Tread Compounds

Achieving fine scale dispersion of silica and carbon black (CB) particles in tire tread compounds is highly desirable for superior mechanical toughness and wet track resistance. The polar nature of silica surfaces requires treatment with silane-type coupling agents while good quality dispersion of CB particles is achieved without the use of designated coupling agents. A higher rolling resistance is attributed to hysteresis loss which in turn is governed by particle network breakdown and agglomeration during high strain deformation. In this context, our strategy is to subdue carbon particle network breakdown by encasing the particles with sustainable materials such as lignin or by engaging them in arene-perfluoroarene interactions with novel polymeric coupling agents. The results show significant promise for reduction of loss tangent at 60 °C by 10-20% while maintaining the loss tangent at 0 °C almost unchanged. In another part of our work, we introduce novel polymeric coupling agents that promote dispersion of carbon black and silica via two entirely different routes – the former via arene-perfluoroarene interactions and the latter via formation of Si-O-Si linkages. The tensile and viscoelastic properties are analyzed as function of dispersion quality and the molecular architecture of the novel coupling agents.