Haydale, Artis, Trelleborg target plasma rCB

During a two-year study, the partners will examine if Haydale’s patented plasma technology can effectively enhance rCB materials to enable their reuse in engineering rubber applications.

The project will also use plasma functionalised graphene, either alone or in combination with the newly developed recovered black materials as a hybrid system.

Such systems could be used to develop novel multifunctional elastomeric materials and products that can find a wide variety of applications across several different industry sectors, said a Haydale press release.

The project is co-funded by the UK’s agency Innovate UK and has a total project budget of over £750,000.

“We believe our expertise in functionalisation will ensure that we can design and deliver the desired type and degree of functionality to recovered carbon black materials,” said Dr Matthew Thornton, senior manager at Haydale.

In combination with functionalised graphene and other nanomaterials, he forecast that these materials will find applications “across the elastomer industry, primarily through the market sectors served by the partners in this project consortium.”

At Avon Rubber Plc company Artis, chief scientist Martyn Bennett said: “We fully believe that this technology can enhance the opportunities for graphene and other nanomaterials and offers scope to grow our technology offerings to the recovered carbon industry through functionalisation and deliver this to the key players at the heart of the rCB industry.”

Underlining Trelleborg’s commitment, Bill Mortel, head of materials at Trelleborg Antivibration Solutions, said: “The use of plasma treatments and graphene additives within our formulations, with the goal of performance improvements, is of great interest to us for potential adoption as a production process.”