Tougher Tires with Tear-Resistant Rubber: A New Material Design

A novel material design promises to reduce pollution where rubber meets the road.

Researchers report in the June 23 issue of Science that strategically adding weak points along microscopic chains called polymers can actually make them harder to tear. Since polymers are a key component in car tires, these findings could help reduce plastic pollution as tires wear down over time.

When tires scrape against the road, they shed tiny particles of rubber and plastic polymers, polluting waterways and contaminating the air (SN: 11/12/18). Annually, tires release an estimated 6 million metric tons of these microplastics into the environment. Stronger polymers that are less prone to breaking could reduce the amount of particles shed each year.

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To create such durable materials, Stephen Craig, a chemist at Duke University, and his colleagues incorporated molecules called cross-linkers into the polymers. These cross-linkers connected the tangled polymer chains to their many neighbors and were specifically designed to break apart easily. At the microscopic scale, the polymers resemble a tangle of spaghetti strands, with the cross-linkers holding them together and maintaining their shape, explains Craig’s collaborator Shu Wang, a chemist at MIT.

When the team stretched the polymer spaghetti, the individual cross-linkers broke easily, as expected. However, the bulk material required more force to rip than anticipated.

The increased toughness is due to the path the tear must take, according to Craig. The tear propagates through the easy-to-break cross-linkers rather than through the tougher polymer strands. Each broken connection follows the path of least resistance, but avoiding the long polymer strands means breaking many cross-linkers, requiring more overall stretching force.

This approach is not the first to use weak connectors to strengthen polymers, but unlike similar materials, the increased toughness does not compromise other beneficial properties like stiffness.

Craig hopes the findings will help extend the lifetimes of car tires and plastics, potentially reducing annual microplastic pollution.