Modified rubber, process for producing the same, and composition
AssigneeJapan Elastomer Co., Ltd.
InventorsHiroshi Fusamae, Keiichi Toda
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The invention relates to: a modified rubber having a specific structure modified with a compound having two or more epoxy groups in the molecule; and a process for producing a modified rubber which includes copolymerizing a vinylaromatic hydrocarbon and a conjugated diene by the solution polymerization method using an organolithium as an initiator and modifying the resultant copolymer with a compound having two or more epoxy groups in the molecule. The invention further relates to a modified-rubber composition obtained by compounding a raw rubber containing the modified rubber with silica, and to rubber vibration isolators and a footwear article each obtained from the modified-rubber composition.
Claims11
A modified rubber comprising a modified copolymer represented by the general formula (R-B)n-X obtained by modifying a copolymer having an (R-B) structure, wherein the modified rubber has a total bound vinylaromatic hydrocarbon content of from 5 to 60% by weight, a bound vinylaromatic hydrocarbon polymer block content of from 3 to 40% by weight, and a vinyl content in the conjugated diene moieties of 80% by mole or lower and the main-peak molecular weight of the molecules which have been coupled by a modifier is from 100,000 to 1,500,000 as determined by GPC (wherein, in the formulae, R represents a conjugated diene polymer or a vinylaromatic hydrocarbon/conjugated diene random copolymer having a bound vinylaromatic hydrocarbon content of 50% by weight or lower;
- B represents a vinylaromatic hydrocarbon/conjugated diene copolymer having a vinylaromatic hydrocarbon polymer block or represents a vinylaromatic hydrocarbon polymer block, the R/B weight ratio being in the range of from 30/70 to 97/3;
- n is an integer of 1 or larger;
- and X represents a modification residue of a compound having two or more epoxy groups per molecule).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.