MgO additive adjusts curing times in a silica filled light colored rubber compound
by Majid Aman-Alikhani, consultant
The invention of white carbon black in March 1951 in Germany by the chemist Dr. Hans Verbeek and his laboratory assistant, Peter Nauroth, and its launch as Ultrasil VN 3 in 1953, created a perfectly suitable filler to strengthen light colored compounds.
With the discovery of modification of the silica surface by silane coupling agents, and then enabling hydrophilic silica to be chemically coupled to the rubber polymer in the 1970s, the problems of difficult processability of silica compounds, as well as the weakness of some properties after curing, were solved, and silica entered a new era in the rubber industry. Finally, since Michelinʼs invention of the green tire in 1992, silica has revolutionized PCR tire production as the exclusive filler for the tread compounds.