Emperor Group's Fiber and Product Transformation Company Emperor Frontier Co., Ltd. recently announced that it has developed an environmentally friendly polyester short fiber with excellent performance and can enhance the use of rubber in auto tires, hoses and belts. Emperor's forefronts will be put into production in 2023. It is expected that by the fiscal year ended in March 2028, sales will reach 1 billion yen (nearly 8.2 million US dollars).

Under the guidance of its Think ECO environmental initiative, Emperor frontier is striving to increase its environmental value, including developing more environmentally friendly materials and products, and the application scope from clothing to industrial materials. This new short fiber is in line with the company's increasing attention to solutions that help reduce environmental burden.

Emperor's frontier will continue to expand the type of polymer that can be used for new short fibers, and continue to develop it for various rubber and resin products, such as tires, hoses and belts. The company will also promote the development of products with recycled raw materials to reduce environmental burden.

This new short -fiber combines polyester nano fibers and polyethylene polymers, which are combined with the proprietary island composite section proprietary island of Emperor's frontiers. Different polymers are used for "sea" and "islands" to improve rubber reinforcement. Polyester nano -nano -fiber with a diameter of 400 nanometers or 700 nanometers is used as an "island" for enhanced materials, and the surrounding "sea" part of the "sea" is made of polyethylene that is easy to mix with rubber. Compared with traditional products, mixing occurs at the molecular level, which enables thousands of times that of nano fibers to evenly dispersed in rubber to achieve the same or better enhancement effect, but the amount required is relatively small.

The length of this new short fiber is only 1 mm or shorter, but because the diameter is small and the length ratio is very high, it helps to enhance. In addition, the short length of the fiber prevents entanglement and distortions, and also helps to uniformly disperse fiber and rubber. Fiber forms continuous lines or surfaces, not decentralized groups. In actual use, fiber rather than rubber absorption deformation stress, resulting in rubber products more durable.

Compared with traditional products, the new short fiber shows higher enhancement performance, so it can reduce the aggregation process. The short fiber eliminates the need for surface treatment, thereby preventing fiber from wrapped like cotton. Both attributes help reduce environmental load, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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When used for car tires, this new short fiber fiber increases elasticity and reduces resistance, so it should help improve fuel efficiency and reduce noise. It is also expected to improve the elastic modulus and durability of the car hose and belt, which is difficult to achieve so far.

Artificial short fibers are used to enhance rubber in products that need to be reused and worn. Traditionally, this is achieved by adjusting the strength and length of the fiber, which is usually between several millimeters and tens of millimeters. However, when the fiber is rubbed into a rubber, the increase in length causes tangling and distortions, which reduces the intensity due to the low decentralization efficiency of the fiber. At the same time, increasing environmental problems increased the demand for reducing molecular weight and surface treatment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.