OCSiAl Group showcases additive based on nanotechnology

CLEVELAND—The OCSiAl Group showed off its nanotube technology to the rubber industry during the recent International Elastomer Conference in Cleveland.

Mike Nemeth, vice president of sales and marketing at OCSiAl USA, presented a paper at the conference that showcased Tuball Rubber, an industrial modifier designed for manufacturing high performance rubber products.

While the company describes the product as a universal additive, the first question it usually gets is about its name. “It is a bit unusual, but if you actually take a closer look, it is based on the Periodic Table of Elements,” including some of the most common elements on Earth, Nemeth said, noting that carbon is the firm's main focus.

OCSiAl launched Tuball-brand rubber additives this year, and the ACS Rubber Division's meeting was the first event Nemeth said he publicly shared data about the product. In rubber, it is aimed at improving key properties of tires and other products.

“It's been proven in some other markets, and now it's starting to hit some price points that makes sense to introduce it to a rubber, elastomer (market),” he said. “So it's a really good opportunity for us to be able to deliver it at price points that make sense in the rubber industry.”

The company has additives for composites, plastics, conductive inks and batteries. Much of Nemeth's work this year has been with the battery and composites market in addition to entering the rubber market.

In his talk, Nemeth discussed ways carbon nanotubes can modify elastomer technology and also evaluate cost and processing requirements of single wall carbon nanotube materials.

One of OCSiAl's focuses is on basic industry education, he added. Nanotechnology has been around for about 20 years, but in the materials world that is just getting into its early stages.

“It takes a long time for new technology to develop,” he said.

It's about a 50/50 split among OCSiAl's contacts and customers, with half having worked with nanotechnology previously and half seeing it as a new entity. The company spends a lot of time just educating people about the technology, he said.

OCSiAl is not a rubber company but rather a carbon nanomaterials company “which is a new category of company,” according to Nemeth. “We serve many, many different markets, and so we're very much experts in these materials. And we're just building partnerships and relationships with people here who understand their piece of the puzzle.”

One thing unique about the firm's material is that it is considered a “universal additive,” so the company can create a manufacturing facility producing 50 metric tons of nanotubes.

“It is just pure carbon, so it's as small as you could imagine carbon cylinders,” he said. One nanotube is 50,000th the width of human hair, meaning 50,000 nanotubes could be stacked side by side to get one width of a human hair.

There is no requirement for OCSiAl to have variations of a product SKU, he said, because of its universal quality. “Our nanotubes happen to be anywhere from 10 to 20 nanometers long sometimes,” Nemeth said. The nanotubes could be made longer; it just varies on the need.

Because nanotubes are so miniscule, another impact it can have is with surface area, in particular with the loading process. When people talk about fillers and other technology, they usually put fillers in at 2-10 percent. However, Nemeth said, Tuball Rubber OCSiAl suggests customers start at 0.05 percent, with results starting from 0.02 percent.

One gram bottle of nanotubes spread out could fill the surface area of 10 football fields, he said. To get the equivalent from other fillers that would put in a 2-10 percent filler, customers can use less of the Tuball Rubber.

“Every company (at the expo) spends years, and countless dollars developing their formula, and they are super protective of it and don't want to tell anybody,” Nemeth said.

With that, a company also doesn't want to have to change it. If it is adding an additive at 5-10 percent, than it may be sacrificing other properties. However, if it is just 0.02-0.03 percent, “you can preserve it. You can leave it as is,” he added. “It's the uncompromising additive. Instead of always having to sacrifice something else, you can put it in and just improve the properties, while preserving the rest of the system.”

The best way for a prospective customer to understand the additive is to get a sample and start to work with it, according to Nemeth.

Mikhail Predtechensky is the primary inventor of the technology that allows OCSiAl to manufacture nanotubes at such scale and price. He began working on the project in 2009.