Embracing the Change: Naphthenic Rubber Process Oils for EPDM Applications

It has been a well-known fact that the base oil landscape has, for some time now, been going through a period of change, where the decline of so called group I refineries has opened up a gap in the market for products with higher viscosity and solvency, which are frequently used as process oils in, among others, rubber applications.

Naphthenic process oils have been largely used as process oils for the rubber industry. Their performance in the tire rubber applications, has been a proven since many years of use by the tire industry, while their performance in other rubber types, such as EPDM, may not be equally paramount.

In this presentation, we will focus on the performance and benefits of naphthenic rubber process oils in EPDM applications. Test compounds are designed to cover a range of different industrial applications, and plasticizing effect of naphthenic rubber process will be compared to that of other plasticisers commonly used in the industry.