Bridgestone Launched New Tire Technology

On June 25, 2018, Bridgestone, the world's largest tire manufacturer, announced that it had invented a method to combine rubber and resin into hybrid polymer at molecular level. This type of material will reduce the amount of polymer material required for the tire.

Bridgestone Invented a New Tire Material.

Bridgestone claims that this new polymer has "unprecedented durability" and, the crack resistance and wear resistance of the polymer are 5 times and 2.5 times stronger than that of ordinary rubber respectively. In addition, the tensile strength is 1.5 times higher than that of natural rubber.

The newly developed "high-strength rubber" (HSR) is called hybrid material: to combine synthetic rubber components, such as butadiene and isoprene, with resin components like ethylene at molecular level.

The production process is carried out by copolymerization using Bridgestone's proprietary gadolinium (Gd) catalyst. The company said it developed the polymer by "further developing" the Gd catalyst technology for the synthesis of polyisoprene rubber. According to the company, this next-generation material combines the flexibility of rubber with the high strength of the resin.

The High-Strength Rubber Material Invented by Bridgestone Is a Sustainable Material.

Bridgestone also points out that the target application includes developments for higher performance and lower material consumption, compared with current tires. The company also expects that the HSR will help it to achieve the target of creating a sustainable material with the reusability rate of 100% by 2050.

In this case, “sustainable materials” are resources derived from continuous supply, which can be used for a long time and have low environmental and social impacts throughout the life cycle that starts from procurement to disposal.