Yokohama Rubber develops crack-resistant rubber

In collaboration with partners from a Japanese university, The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd. has developed a rubber that is highly elastic and resistant to cracking. The company anticipates that further research in this area will lead to the development of safer and more durable tyres.

The rubber material is made from nanoparticle-based polymers – polymer particles smaller than a microscale. These nanoparticles are synthesised via the process of mini-emulsion polymerisation and do not contain additives such as organic solvents and reinforcing agents.

By evaporating water from a nanoparticle-dispersed aqueous solution, the researchers were left with a rubber material in the form of a nanoparticle film. They enhanced resistance to cracking without using reinforcing agents or other additives by inserting rotaxane molecules into these nanoparticles as a crosslinking agent.

Yokohama Rubber developed the material in collaboration with Shinshu University, specifically a research group from the Graduate School of Textile Science and Technology, which was led by Associate Professor Daisuke Suzuki, as well as the Research Initiative for Supra-Materials (RSIM). The researchers published the results of their work in Langmuir, an American Chemical Society journal, on 17 June.