GERMAN specialty chemicals company Lanxess and Korean Hankook Tire signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on 26 February to co-develop synthetic rubber technologies for high-performance tyres.
Under the agreement, the two companies will jointly study the development of new high-performance synthetic rubber grades and applications, which increase the performance of tires from early stages of product development.
Both firms have maintained a close partnership since 2008, when Hankook Tire awarded Lanxess a long-term contract to supply solution styrene-butadiene rubber (S-SBR) and neodymium performance butadiene rubber (Nd-PBR) – both core materials for high-performance tyres.
Lanxess provides high-performance synthetic rubbers to global leading tyre makers. Last October, the company launched two new easy processing Nd-PBR rubber grades – Buna Nd 22 EZ and Buna Nd 24 EZ. It is also currently building in Singapore what it claims to be the world’s largest Nd-PBR manufacturing facility, which is expected to come on-stream in 2015.
Hankook Tire’s continued R&D efforts have resulted in this partnership with Lanxess, it says. It has invested in a new central R&D hub and a test engineering centre in Korea.