Improvements in Tire Productivity and Performance with Agilon™ Performance Silicas

Rising fuel costs, a wide range of national and international legislation, and increased public attention continue to encourage the automotive industry to pursue increasingly environmentally friendly passenger car tires with improved fuel efficiency and safety.  These demands require further expansion of the rolling resistance, traction, and treadwear (“magic”) triangle beyond the benefits supplied by the current conventional highly dispersible silica / in-situ silane system.  Agilon™ Performance Silica makes use of the appropriate combination of a core precipitated silica particle with a significant organic surface, made up of coupling and non-coupling agents, to enable the appropriate development of filler-filler and polymer-filler interaction within hydrocarbon polymer based compounds to enable this further expansion of the “magic” triangle.  The results in this study further confirm that formulations that are appropriately adjusted to make use of these improvements will address the required further expansion of the “magic” triangle.  These adjustments take into account the change in skeletal density, the significant decrease in the polarity of the filler surface plus compensating for the significant reduction in sulfur as a result of no longer requiring the silane used in the current conventional system.  Information is provided on the beneficial effect of Agilon™ 400G silica on sulfidic crosslink types.  This paper also discusses the significant increase in productivity provided by fillers produced from the Agilon™ Performance Silica technology platform.