Waste Rubber Scrap Can Become A New Shoe Material.

China is a big shoe manufacturing nation. The annual output of rubber shoes is more than 13 trillion.

However, rubber shoes will produce a lot of corner waste during the production process. In the past, these wastes were either thrown into the garbage dump or burned in the incinerator, and turned into various toxic and harmful gases to pollute our air.

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China is the largest rubber consumer in the world, and is also a country with a shortage of rubber resources. More than 75% of natural rubber needs to be imported annually.

It is a pity that the valuable rubber resources should be treated as rubbish.

For this reason, researchers have been working hard to recycle rubber products for a long time.

In the shoe market of Quanzhou, rubber shoes material wastes that were not seen by others were gradually being "reborn" and pformed into new shoe materials.

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New material

In Quanzhou Huayang shoe material technology Co., Ltd., Zhang Zhengchou, director of technology, showed a sole to reporters. No matter from the appearance or texture, it was nothing different from the usual rubber soles.

"This is made of waste rubber."

According to Zhang Zhengchou, the biggest problem to be solved in rubber recycling is "desulfurization".

Since rubber products must undergo a sulphide treatment before forming, the physical structure of the treated rubber is very stable and it is difficult to reprocess.

"If we want to turn these rubber wastes into treasure, we must use physical means to" open the sulfur carbon bonds inside them. "

The "opening rate" of sulfur carbon bonds is directly related to the recycling rate of rubber. However, it is understood that the traditional rubber recovery processing method can reach 40% of the rubber sulfur carbon bond "opening rate" after processing, so that the reclaimed rubber must be reconstituted into shoe material, and a large amount of new glue must be added. The proportion of reclaimed rubber and new adhesive is almost 3:7.

Extremely low.

The Huayang shoe material has increased the "opening rate" of the sulfur and carbon bonds of rubber waste to more than 70% by adjusting the formulation and improving the production equipment. The recovery rate of rubber waste has been greatly improved. "Now in our regenerated rubber shoes, the ratio of reclaimed rubber and new adhesive reaches 8:2, and reclaimed rubber has become the leading role worthy of success."

According to Zhang Zhengchou, the performance of regenerated rubber shoes in various physical properties tests is almost the same as that of new rubber, and even better than that of new ones.

The project is also supported by the new technology of energy saving and emission reduction.

New advanced reclaimed rubber thermoplastic process

But even though the performance of recycled plastic shoes produced by Huayang shoe material is quite satisfactory, there is still a headache that can not be solved.

"Reclaimed rubber is to be made into shoe material, and its manufacturing process should still take the old road of rubber, that is, molding.

This kind of production method is time-consuming and easy to say. It is also easy to produce corner waste, and these reclaimed rubber scrap materials are more difficult to recycle again, and their recycling ratio is lower than that of one time. Eventually, it is inevitable to produce a bunch of useless and polluting waste. "

Based on the improvement of the regenerated rubber production process and the consideration of its performance improvement, Huayang shoe material has invested heavily in the development of a new round of recycling and reuse of waste rubber. This time, the researchers turned their attention from the chemical modification research of reclaimed rubber desulfurization to the production of new materials by blending waste rubber powder with other shoe materials.

"Now the shoe material industry has a main material TR. This shoe material is light in weight, fast in molding, simple in production process, and can be completely recycled and has low comprehensive cost.

But TR sole is not resistant to folding, aging, and wear resistance.

On the other hand, although rubber soles are slow in shape, low in material utilization and high in energy consumption, rubber soles are more wearable and aging resistant, and the surface texture is better than that of TR soles.

"How to create a material that has both the properties of rubber soles and the processing method of thermoplastic materials is the new direction that shoemaking people have been researching."

Huayang shoe material "step" is obviously bigger. They want to reuse the old rubber and TR, and realize the magnificent pformation of turning waste into treasure.

The R & D personnel of Huayang shoe material, through the surface active treatment of the rubber powder produced by the waste rubber, and at the same time, make use of the compatibility of EVA to the rubber and the inclusion of the powder, so that the rubber powder can be dispersed evenly in SBS.

The three materials attract each other and form a tight structure. A new TR shoe material is shining.

"At present, the price of TR raw materials on the market is nearly 3 times the price of this reclaimed rubber TR.

Moreover, the new material can be thermally plastic with ordinary discs, making an average shoe sole in 40 seconds.

According to Zhang Zhengchou, in the past, rubber soles were molded by pressing process, averaging 2 minutes to produce a sole.

The reporter has a reclaimed rubber TPR sole in his hand, which is very light and light, and it is equal to ordinary rubber soles, no matter from the surface of press, wear and so on.