Preface Free

Rubbers are indispensable materials in modern society, and have played critical roles in many industries, ranging from transportation, construction, oil and gas, electronics, sports, robotics to biomedical devices. Today’s rubber technology has faced significant challenges toward net-zero goals and circular economy development, due to the conventional energy-intensive vulcanization processes, toxic curing chemicals, and permanently crosslinked polymer networks. Technology breakthroughs across the rubber value chains are urgently needed to address VOC emissions, and promote the reuse and recycling of rubber products.

This book introduces state-of-the-art rubber technology development, and provides readers with a critical overview of the latest rubber devulcanization and decrosslinking techniques (Section I); the emerging dynamic chemistry for rubber curing and reprocessing; the strategies to tackle the trade-offs of the polymer network thermodynamics and physicochemical properties of the vulcanizates (Section II); the role of functional fillers and hybrid filler systems; biomass-derived alternatives to fillers, additives and elastomer matrices; rubber blends and TPVs, as well as multiple crosslinking networks (Section III); and the new development and challenges in dielectric elastomers, tires, seals, and damping rubbers (Section IV).

This book will benefit researchers and engineers with a fundamental understanding of the dynamic curing chemistry, polymer–filler interactions, and structure–property relationships of modern rubber technology, and will pave the way toward a circular rubber economy.

Chaoying Wan

Baochun Guo