Reducing zinc oxide in rubber industry use through the development of mixed metal oxide nanoparticles

Despite its superior characteristics, there is an increased concern about the environmental effects that zinc oxide causes and over the years lower levels of zinc have been tried in order to decrease its impact and to minimise the production costs. Different approaches have been considered for reducing zinc levels. Between all the alternatives proposed, the use of nano–sized ZnO particles with high surface area seems to be promising. However, it was found that the use of more active forms of zinc oxide did not substantially reduce further the minimum zinc content that can be achieved with conventional zinc oxide although the dispersion of high surface area ZnO during mixing was found to be significantly better, which could enable low levels of this zinc oxide to be used in industry with more confidence 2 .