Opportunities and challenges of automotive synthetic rubber in the era of electrification
The advent of the electrification era has brought disruptive changes to the entire automotive industry chain, and even upstream materials companies have had to make extreme changes.

 

During the recently held 2023 China International Rubber Technology Exhibition, the author visited a number of automotive rubber materials and products companies and found that most of the booths presented new energy vehicle-related products and promotions. Among them, Arlanxeo, a world-renowned synthetic rubber supplier, even directly moved out a display car model to talk about its innovative progress.

 

"The development prospects of new energy are very broad, which brings huge potential for the application of synthetic rubber. The company is accelerating innovation layout to seize new opportunities in the industry." said Lu Boyang, Vice President of Sales of ARLANXEO Greater China.

  Synthetic rubber is widely used in core components such as automobile tires, hoses, suspensions, and seals due to its excellent heat resistance, cold resistance, wear resistance, and aging resistance. For this reason, although it has been behind the scenes for a long time, it is quite critical to the advancement of automobiles. So, let’s take a look at the impact of the advent of the electrification era on synthetic rubber and the progress of technology.

 

In the era of electrification, the synthetic rubber business has “plus” among “minus”

 

According to reports, the automotive industry is the largest consumer area of synthetic rubber, accounting for approximately 70% of the world's total consumption. For this reason, major changes in the automobile industry have a huge impact on it.

 

An industry insider told Gasgoo that new energy vehicles are actually a "double-edged sword" for synthetic rubber. The oil pipes, timing belts and other components of fuel vehicles involve the application of synthetic rubber. However, in electric vehicles, these components no longer exist, which is a big impact for enterprises. However, the new component applications and overall performance improvements of electric vehicles have placed many new demands on synthetic rubber.

 

For example, the coating of active materials in lithium-ion batteries requires the support of good bonding materials, and synthetic rubber is one of the ideal choices.

 

Thermal management is one of the important systems of new energy vehicles, and the refrigerant in the cooling system also involves synthetic rubber. Not only that, the heat dissipation system of the vehicle is more dispersed, resulting in an increase in the use of cooling pipes on bicycles, which is also a plus for synthetic rubber.

 

In addition, the vibration damping systems of new energy vehicles need to meet dynamic performance requirements at higher frequencies than traditional vehicles, which makes air springs made of synthetic rubber more popular.

 

"New energy vehicles bring a lot of opportunities to synthetic rubber. In addition to the above, they also include charging piles, wires and cables, etc. In particular, new energy vehicles are paying more and more attention to safety, mileage, and the interior environment of the vehicle. High, from this perspective, cleaner rubber and higher-performance rubber will definitely be used more and more." said Dr. Cheng Baojia, Technical Director of ARLANXEO Asia.

 

Technology faces new challenges, and high-performance rubber becomes an urgent need

 

As Dr. Cheng Baojia said above, in high-voltage and high-current environments, new energy vehicles have put forward more stringent requirements for the performance of all components and related materials. So, what are the technical challenges that synthetic rubber faces, and how will companies respond? In response to this, Gasgoo Automobile had further exchanges with Dr. Cheng Baojia. He introduced core products such as tires and thermal management as examples:

 

● In terms of tires, the weight of electric vehicles increases, but the acceleration increases. The instantaneous torque will have a greater impact on the tires. This requires the synthetic rubber material used in the tires to have good elasticity and wear resistance, while giving the tires stronger grip and reducing rolling resistance to improve the vehicle's energy efficiency.

 

● In terms of thermal management, the heating and cooling systems of new energy vehicles are extremely complex. Especially in cold winter, the heating efficiency is directly linked to the vehicle's driving range and performance. Synthetic rubber parts need to withstand extreme cold and heat changes and the erosion of cooling agents.

 

● The electrical equipment of new energy vehicles has increased significantly compared with internal combustion engines, which requires all electrical systems and conductive materials to have stronger electromagnetic shielding and insulation properties, as well as resistance to liquid media, ultraviolet rays, ozone and mechanical wear.

 

Facing the new demands of new energy vehicles, Dr. Cheng Baojia pointed out that the company has developed many innovative solutions to deal with them. For example, in terms of tires, it has previously worked with Solvay and Bridgestone to create a tire joint development technology platform TECHSYN, which It can achieve up to 30% improvement in tire wear and 6% reduction in rolling resistance; in terms of thermal management, Perbunan® NBR and Therban® HNBR products have high resistance to extreme temperatures and polar liquids; in terms of power system components, Keltan® EPDM The material can be used to produce high-performance hoses, seals and gaskets... In addition, in the face of the surge in demand for power batteries, Dr. Cheng Baojia said that ARLANXEO established a battery laboratory in Changzhou very early and this year Laboratory upgraded to develop innovative synthetic rubber solutions for lithium batteries