Issue 45/2015 - Wet mixing achieves 10,000-ton continuous production

On November 9, the 10,000-ton natural rubber/silica wet mixing continuous production line project passed the scientific and technological achievements appraisal
organized by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan.
The project is the first in the world to achieve the continuous production
of 10,000-ton natural rubber/silica wet mixing.

Experts from the appraisal team said after the production site inspection that this achievement is not only a major technological breakthrough in the natural rubber industry, but also will bring subversive changes to the mixing process with the highest energy consumption in rubber processing, and provide a new way
for green tire manufacturing.

The achievement was jointly completed
by Beijing Wanxiang Xinyuan Technology Co.
, Ltd.
, Mengla Manzhuang Rubber Company, Zhuzhou Anbaolin Feng New Material Co.
, Ltd.
, and Beijing Wanhui Yifang Science and Technology Development Co.
, Ltd.
The appraisal expert group determined that this achievement with complete independent intellectual property rights has reached the international advanced level
as a whole.

The project researched and developed a new technology for rapid flocculation of non-acid flocculants based on dynamic ratio control liquid phase continuous feed mixing, which meets the requirements of continuous production, saves 50% of water compared with the traditional solidification process, shortens the flocculation time from 5 hours to 30 seconds, and the production line is 20% of the traditional process footprint; Develop and manufacture a new rubber screw extrusion continuous dehydration granulation integrated machine, realize the moisture content of the material at the outlet end of the extrusion dehydration granulator below 30%, and ensure that the loss rate of material (silica) is less than 2%; The new technology and device of microwave continuous shallow drying were designed and developed, which were applied for the first time in the production of natural rubber, and realized rapid and uniform drying with low energy consumption; Established a complete set of natural rubber/silica wet mixing process continuous production technology package, formed independent intellectual property rights and formulated enterprise standards
.

A prominent feature of the project is that it makes it possible to apply a high proportion of silica in tire processing, providing a new approach
to rubber for green tires.
They have developed and integrated new technologies and new devices such as continuous liquid phase mixing of rubber and reinforcing filler, rapid flocculation, screw extrusion dehydration and granulation, shallow microwave continuous drying, etc.
, and built a continuous production line of 10,000-ton natural rubber/silica wet mixing process for the first time in the world, which can produce 10~90 parts of silica as filler wet mixing rubber
.

After testing by authoritative institutions and application verification by tire enterprises such as South China Tire and Bayi Tire, the performance of silica dispersion, rubber strength, elasticity, heat generation and rolling resistance of the product has been significantly improved; The high-speed durability of tires can be improved, heat generation is reduced, and rolling resistance is reduced by 10%~16%.


Reducing the energy consumption of rubber processing is another major feature of
the project's results.
According to the project leader, the most energy-consuming process in rubber processing is mixing, which accounts for about 40%
of the total energy consumption of the tire production process.
The traditional rubber dry mixing process consumes about 400 kWh of electricity per ton of rubber mixing
.
The natural rubber/silica wet mixing rubber has evenly dispersed silica in the rubber material, which can not only improve the quality of the rubber mixture, reduce the dust pollution of the rubber factory, but also reduce the energy consumption of the rubber material mixing by 15%~30%, and save more than
60 kWh per ton of rubber material.
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