BANGKOK – Thailand has become the site of the Global Rubber, Latex & Tire Expo 2016 or GRTE during March 9-11.
The event, which featured a grand exhibition of many stakeholders in rubber industry, including a reunion of alumni from a rubber technology program of the Prince of Songkla University, Pattani Campus or the PSU, who got together again to freely offer their knowledge in polymer technology in the form of a Rubber Clinic program.
One of the highlights of the Clinic was a long list of research successes which greatly advanced knowledge in the field of polymer science and rubber materials. The most prominent among these was definitely the Silica-Reinforced Natural Rubber Tread Compound by Kanika Sahakaro who was awarded the Winner Rubber Technologist of Thailand.
“Carbon black and silica work differently in rubber. In case of carbon black we basically have only physical interaction between rubber and carbon black but in terms of silica, we use this silica with a kind of a bridging agent. So we have another chemical to link silica with rubber. Given a deformed tire, the stress of rubber can transfer to filler more effectively. So you lose less energy during the running of the tire”, Dr. Kanika said.
The PSU was the first, and currently, the only university in Thailand to offer a Rubber Technology Program. In the southernmost region, rubber is among the most important resources of Pattani and arguably the entire southern peninsula. In the face of a rubber price crisis, the technologies that open up new possibilities in making rubber products and the combined efforts of alumni researchers from the PSU are more than welcomed by everyone.
