Millions of drivers worldwide rely on dependable tires to keep them safe, especially in wet weather. Kraton has a track record of helping tire producers innovate with sustainable additives for tire manufacturing for a better driving experience. For more than 65 years, Kraton has been a key supplier to the tire industry.
Rosin-based tackifiers have a long history in tire-building applications, and accelerators from pure and modified fatty-acid streams are essential in modern tire design and manufacturing. Kraton has spent the last 20 years working with the industry’s top tire manufacturers to improve tire performance and provide cutting-edge ideas.
Tires
SYLVATRAXX™ Product Suite
SYLVATRAXX™ products are innovative solutions designed to help tire manufacturers balance critical performance properties like wet grip, rolling resistance, and tread wear. SYLVATRAXX products are optimized for tire applications, and most of the portfolio has a high biobased content, up to 100%, and is certified by the USDA BioPreferred® program.
Pine-based Sustainability Advantages
Solutions
Tread Enhancement Additives
Kraton’s natural, synthetic, and hybrid portfolio optimizes tire performance balance, slick road handling, and tire lifespan.
Tread enhancement additives enhance the performance of rubber compounds in the final tire application by optimizing wet traction. Based on formulation needs, we can advise on the best additive selection supported by extensive application data.
Features and Benefits
- Improves wet traction
- Improves dynamic performance balance
- Enables extended tire durability
- Enables improved rolling resistance
Process Enhancement Additives
Kraton’s range of additive grades are designed to improve the processability of modern tire compounds, which are becoming more advanced to meet increasingly stringent requirements for tire properties.
Process enhancement additives reduce mooney viscosity and enable more effective processing of modern tire compounds containing advanced silanes with high silica loadings and latest-generation rubber polymers.
Features and Benefits
- Reduce mooney viscosity
- Improve tire compound processing
Core Rubber Additives
Core rubber additives allow manufacturers to control rubber manufacturing or compounding processes to achieve optimal properties.
With a long-standing history of supplying the rubber industry, Kraton’s product portfolio offers a selection of additives that delivers reliable performance.
SYLFAT™ FA2 is a tall oil fatty acid (TOFA) similar to stearic acid but in liquid form. Used in rubber compounds for decades because it helps reduce blooming and increases tack. However, unlike other fatty acids, TOFA does not compete with the food chain.
SYLVAROS™ DRS 40 and SYLVAROS DRS 42 are catalytically disproportionated tall oil rosin potassium soaps. The disproportionation step converts abietic acid into the more oxidation-resistant dehydroabietic acid isomer. The low abietic acid content minimizes interaction with the catalyst-initiator system and does not influence the polymer chain length during the polymerization of SBR rubber.
SYLVATAL™ D30LR is a distilled tall oil (DTO), a mixture of tall oil fatty acid and tall oil rosin that combines the benefits of individual components for optimal performance.
