Development of Sustainable Tire Tread Using Novel Biobased Itaconate Elastomers

Driven by the incessant depletion of fossil resources and pressing environmental concerns, it is crucial to develop biobased tire tread materials with excellent balanced comprehensive properties in the rubber industry. Herein, an efficient and facile strategy for fabricating high-performance tire tread materials is reported that biobased itaconate elastomer poly­(dibutyl itaconate-co-butadiene-co-glycidyl methacrylate) (PDBIBG) was synthesized by solvent-free emulsion polymerization. This macromolecular structure allows for the preparation of silica-reinforced composites with excellent rolling resistance, which is attributed to the covalent bonding and hydrogen bonding between the PDBIBG chains and silica. Moreover, in order to further optimize the wet skid resistance, two routes were designed to adjust the molecular structure of the PDBIBG matrix by means of the idea of integral rubber. Additional copolymerization components included styrene, dimethyl itaconate, diethyl itaconate, isoprene, myrcene, and farnesene. A series of biobased elastomers (x-PDBIBG) with high molecular weight (200,000 to 352,000 g/mol) were obtained. The chemical structure, thermal properties, mechanical properties, elasticity, and dynamic mechanical properties were studied in detail. The results showed that x-PDBIBG/silica exhibited a tensile strength ranging from 11.8 to 20.9 MPa. For x-PDBIBG/silica with 10 wt % myrcene, the rolling resistance decreased by 19.5% and the wet skid resistance increased by 19.2% at the same time comparable to PDBIBG/silica. Additionally, x-PDBIBG with myrcene or farnesene had higher biobased components. This strategy may be equally applicable to commercially available petroleum-based rubbers, which can meet the requirements of performance improvement and biobased raw material at the same time. This work provides a theoretical basis for the preparation of biobased, high-performance integral elastomers and their application in sustainable tire tread.