A part of Nynas’ development work is making sure that there is good knowledge of the customers’ manufacturing processes. One example is the special laboratories used to verify the effects of oils in different formulations in the grease and adhesive segments. An additional laboratory has now been opened to be used for tests in the field of tyre and rubber manufacturing.
“Our new in-house rubber compounding and testing laboratory will enable us to gain additional hands-on application and formulation knowledge to better evaluate the performance of oils in rubber, to improve sales support and to accelerate the approval process for naphthenic process oils in the tyre, rubber and TPE industries,” says Dr Mika Lahtinen Technical Manager, Nynas Naphthenics.
At the heart of the new laboratory is an intermeshing 1.5 litre rubber mixer together with an open mill. Instruments allow measurements of, for example, general processing behaviour including properties such as viscosity, curing rate and scorch safety, hardness and tensile properties, ageing performance, dynamic-mechanical behaviour, abrasion resistance and compression set.
What does the lab mean for Nynas’ customers?
“We can support customers in finding the best oils for their applications by demonstrating the technical value of our process oils. This can be done by, for example, formulating and fine-tuning the rubber compounds, estimating the potential of new materials, identifying optimised processing conditions and in general providing a second opinion on the compounding of rubber,” concludes Mika Lahtinen.