Five Major Trends in the Application of Rubber Antioxidants

With the advancement of technology and the increasing demands for environmental protection from humanity, the rubber industry has also seen evolving requirements for rubber antioxidants. Looking back at the development history of rubber antioxidants, it has roughly gone through exploration, derivation, improvement, efficiency, and environmental protection.

Based on the development history of rubber antioxidants and the modern demands of humanity, the application of rubber antioxidants will develop towards the following five major trends:

1. Environmental Protection

Environmental protection is the theme of today's world, and the rubber industry is no exception. Therefore, environmentally friendly additives are also one of the development trends for antioxidants.

Environmental protection has been a focus of human attention for the past decade. Many countries and regions around the world have introduced relevant policies, laws, and regulations to impose higher requirements for environmental protection, such as SGS, REACH, ROHS, MSDS, etc. Among the series of antioxidants, the aniline-based antioxidants are undoubtedly the most concerning. It is well known that aniline-based antioxidants are an important variety among pollution-type antioxidants. Due to their disadvantages such as easy discoloration, poor extractability, easy loss, and toxicity, in recent years, the environmental pollution caused by aniline-based antioxidants has attracted more attention than their excellent anti-aging performance. Some products can be said to be a double-edged sword for humanity, such as antioxidant 4010NA, which has undeniable efficacy in anti-aging, but its biggest drawbacks—easy discoloration, easy extraction, and toxicity—pose significant challenges to its dominant position, and it seems that EU countries have already blacklisted it. However, due to its remarkable contributions to the aging industry in the rubber industry, people are reluctant to give up this contributor. Therefore, many countries and companies have included it in improvement plans and have achieved success.

2. Long-lasting and Efficient

Human concerns about resource and energy depletion are becoming increasingly evident. We often see or hear many discussions and reports about energy depletion. The rubber industry currently relies heavily on resources such as oil and coal, and the usage of synthetic rubber now far exceeds that of natural rubber. The application fields of rubber are still expanding, while the amount of waste tires and other waste rubber products generated each year is enormous, and the post-processing work consumes a lot of manpower and resources. Although there are many advanced waste rubber recycling processes now, they still cannot keep up with the speed of waste product generation. The production of natural rubber can no longer meet human demand, so the way to save energy is to extend the service life of products to the greatest extent. This also places higher demands on rubber antioxidants, and high-efficiency and long-lasting antioxidants are bound to be the choice of the masses. For example, Flexsys in the United States has successfully developed a slow-release antioxidant 6PPD-C18 (a complex of antioxidant 4020 and stearate) to improve the long-lasting performance of 6PPD.

3. Health-oriented

It is known that antioxidant A and antioxidant D have excellent comprehensive anti-aging performance and have had a glorious history, but due to their potential to induce cancer, they have gradually faded from the sight of developed countries and have been completely relegated to obscurity. Although there is still a small amount of application domestically, it is now negligible. Humanity can now be said to be conducting a thorough 'review' of the antioxidant family, immediately 'filing cases' upon discovering issues, and it is highly likely that aniline-based antioxidants will slowly fade from people's sight in the coming years.

4. Special Purpose

In addition to general antioxidants, certain special products have higher requirements for aging resistance, such as antioxidants that combine non-pollution, ozone resistance, and UV resistance, antioxidants that can withstand high temperatures above 200 degrees, or those that can endure extreme low temperatures, and antioxidants that resist high radiation.

5. Composite Antioxidants

Among rubber antioxidants, there are many excellent varieties with flaws. By compounding these varieties with other antioxidants or carriers, we can complement each other's strengths and obtain varieties with better comprehensive performance, such as the composite antioxidant series from Bayer.

As technology continues to advance and humanity's demands for environmental protection increase, the application of rubber antioxidants will increasingly develop in these five major directions.