Preface
This book is the most recent account on rubber reinforcement, highlighting nanofiller clustering in rubber matrix, in particular. It is needless to say that the rubber
reinforcement has been recognized to be one of the most important research and
developmental subjects among rubber chemists and engineers, together with vulcanization. On the one hand, the vulcanization is an indispensable precondition for
rubber in order to make it serviceable as a stable elastic material. It was invented in
1839 by C. Goodyear when a rubber compound containing sulfur and white lead
was by chance placed beside the heater which his wife, Clarissa, was using in the
kitchen. This anecdote suggests that the kitchen was his laboratory, and he was not
a professional technician but a poor backstreet inventor.
On the other hand, reinforcement of rubber by carbon black was reported by
S. C. Mote in 1904 in the UK not as an invention but as a practice in rubber
compounding process in combination with fiber cord, in order to manufacture
automobile tires as a final product. In 1910, the Diamond Rubber Co. in Akron,
Ohio, took out a license of this process, followed by the acquisition of the business
by B. F. Goodrich in the USA. It is noticeable that the first mass-produced passenger car for ordinary people, i.e., Ford model T was commercialized in 1908. In
accordance with the development of mass production of automobiles, the utilization
of carbon black grew rapidly in the rubber industry, and black color soon became
standard for tires.
Thus, due to the utmost technical importance of rubber reinforcement by loading
carbon black, there have been published many, too many, technical reports and
know-how to give a lucid and coherent explanation of reinforcing effect on rubber.
In other words, the excessively abundant reports have failed to elucidate the exact
reinforcing mechanism, which is to be of use in designing rubber compounds.
Consequently, only one book entitled ‘Reinforcement of Elastomers’ has been
published so far focusing upon rubber reinforcement, in 1965. The book was edited
by G. Kraus, and it has remained to be authoritative on rubber reinforcement for
more than half a century. This surprising scanty of the dependable literatures of
rubber reinforcement may be due to the extreme complexity of reinforcing mechanism, we have assumed.
v
This book is the most recent account on rubber reinforcement, highlighting nanofiller clustering in rubber matrix, in particular. It is needless to say that the rubber
reinforcement has been recognized to be one of the most important research and
developmental subjects among rubber chemists and engineers, together with vulcanization. On the one hand, the vulcanization is an indispensable precondition for
rubber in order to make it serviceable as a stable elastic material. It was invented in
1839 by C. Goodyear when a rubber compound containing sulfur and white lead
was by chance placed beside the heater which his wife, Clarissa, was using in the
kitchen. This anecdote suggests that the kitchen was his laboratory, and he was not
a professional technician but a poor backstreet inventor.
On the other hand, reinforcement of rubber by carbon black was reported by
S. C. Mote in 1904 in the UK not as an invention but as a practice in rubber
compounding process in combination with fiber cord, in order to manufacture
automobile tires as a final product. In 1910, the Diamond Rubber Co. in Akron,
Ohio, took out a license of this process, followed by the acquisition of the business
by B. F. Goodrich in the USA. It is noticeable that the first mass-produced passenger car for ordinary people, i.e., Ford model T was commercialized in 1908. In
accordance with the development of mass production of automobiles, the utilization
of carbon black grew rapidly in the rubber industry, and black color soon became
standard for tires.
Thus, due to the utmost technical importance of rubber reinforcement by loading
carbon black, there have been published many, too many, technical reports and
know-how to give a lucid and coherent explanation of reinforcing effect on rubber.
In other words, the excessively abundant reports have failed to elucidate the exact
reinforcing mechanism, which is to be of use in designing rubber compounds.
Consequently, only one book entitled ‘Reinforcement of Elastomers’ has been
published so far focusing upon rubber reinforcement, in 1965. The book was edited
by G. Kraus, and it has remained to be authoritative on rubber reinforcement for
more than half a century. This surprising scanty of the dependable literatures of
rubber reinforcement may be due to the extreme complexity of reinforcing mechanism, we have assumed.
v