New Chemistry slashes need for zinc oxide

ERJ staff report (DS)

Dresden, Germany -- A paper presented by Dr. Gert Heinrich of the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden at the Technom conference in Chemitz claims that rubber textbooks will have to be re-written.

Dr Heinrich claims to have patented a technology based on zinc hydrotalcite which reduces the need for zinc oxide to a tenth or less compared with current levels of around 2 - 3 percent. It also offers the possibility of making transparent vulcanisates from nitrile and carboxylated nitrile elastomers.

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Press release from University of Dresden (German language)

Above press release auto-translated into English (from German)