ABSTRACT
Almost 60% of the world’s population expected to live in cities by 2030, global efforts are directed toward addressing the challenges emerging from the rapid pace of urbanization, climate change and increased traffic density. The automobile industry is focusing on complying with stringent regulations for reducing vehicle emissions and promoting greener mobility – not only through electrification of vehicles but also through material research and development in tire technology. With ever increasing performance targets, mainly radical reduction in rolling resistance requirement, CB and silica are found to be inadequate to address these aspects. This necessitates the development of hybrid elastomeric composite with new generation fillers possessing higher surface area to improve polymer-filler interaction (1D, 2D or 3D) in contrast to the regular filler CB or silica (0D). In hybrid composites like tire, lower hysteresis can be achieved by using thermally conductive fillers to meet the rolling resistance requirement without sacrificing millage and durability. In this regard, graphene is one of the promising materials to address the performance criteria by successful development of hybrid nanocomposites with proper processing technology. This chapter contains comprehensive review on morphology of various grades of graphene, preparation of graphene nanocomposites and their physico-mechanical properties applicable for tire industries.
