Exploring E2C DX9660 with Aatif Ahmed Misbah, on Cabot Corporation’s sustainable innovations and performance advancements in the automotive industry

Welcome to this exciting Automotive Industries interview with Aatif Ahmed Misbah, the Vice President and General Manager of Sustainable Solutions at Cabot Corporation. As a leader in the development of advanced materials, Cabot Corporation is at the forefront of innovation in the automotive industry. In this interview, Aatif shares insights into the revolutionary E2C® DX9660 engineered elastomer composite, a product that exemplifies the company’s commitment to sustainability without compromising on performance.

Aatif begins by detailing the development process of the E2C DX9660, which started five years ago from early prototypes tested on the road. The benefits observed in hysteresis and improved wear performance led to continuous enhancements, resulting in the current high-performing solution. The E2C DX9660 is produced using a proprietary and patented mixing process, allowing for superior carbon black dispersion and improved rubber properties, essential for on-road commercial tire applications.

Cabot’s unique Light Touch™ mixing guidelines enable the DX9660 grade to deliver an approximate 30% increase in abrasion resistance while maintaining rolling resistance. This innovation is validated through extensive commercial field trials in various regions, underscoring its potential to reduce end-of-life tires and promote sustainability.

Aatif highlights the three distinct features that set the E2C DX9660 apart from traditional compounds: the selection of unique carbon blacks, the superior dispersion process that preserves rubber molecular weight, and the user-friendly mixing guidelines. These elements combine to offer a pre-mixed composite that enhances both performance and durability.

Scalability and accessibility are crucial for Cabot Corporation. The company ensures this through its commercial manufacturing facility in Port Dickson, Malaysia, which supports global tire manufacturers. The proprietary mixing process not only improves carbon black dispersion but also prevents unnecessary degradation of rubber, thus breaking the conventional compromise between dispersion and rubber integrity.

Throughout the interview, Aatif emphasizes the importance of sustainability. Cabot’s E2C solutions contribute to reducing end-of-life tires, extending the life of tire treads, and promoting retreading. Looking ahead, Cabot Corporation is committed to further advancements in sustainable solutions, aiming to meet their net zero ambitions and develop materials that support the automotive industry’s sustainability goals.

Follows the in-depth discussion with Aatif Ahmed Misbah, on the innovative E2C DX9660 and its impact on the future of sustainable automotive solutions.

Automotive Industries interview with Aatif Ahmed Misbah, VP & GM of Sustainable Solutions at Cabot Corporation

Automotive Industries: Hi Aatif, can you elaborate on the development process behind the E2C DX9660 engineered elastomer composite and how it contributes to sustainability while maintaining high performance standards?

Misbah: At Cabot, we actively collaborate with our customers to develop products that improve performance, create value and impart significant sustainability benefits. The development of our E2C(r) DX9660 engineered elastomer composite started approximately five years ago, stemming from early prototypes that our team tested on the road, where we saw benefits in hysteresis and improved wear performance. These results were attractive to our customers and as such, we continued to improve our design and delivered a new solution designed to offer maximum wear performance. That new solution is our E2C DX9660 grade.

Our E2C DX9660 elastomer composite is produced in a proprietary and patented mixing process that enables superior carbon black dispersion and improved rubber properties for on-road commercial tire applications.

Utilizing Cabot’s Light Touch(tm) mixing guidelines, our DX9660 grade delivers an approximately 30% increase in abrasion resistance without sacrificing rolling resistance over conventional compounds. The on-road performance of this product has also been validated by customers, with commercial field trials underway in multiple regions. Lastly, by delivering high levels of tread wear resistance, the DX9660 solution results in a reduction of end-of-life tires, thereby enabling a more sustainable future while maintaining high performance standards.

Automotive Industries: What specific features of the E2C DX9660 elastomer composite make it stand out in terms of performance and durability compared to traditional compounds?

Misbah: Our E2C DX9660 is a pre-mixed composite of rubber and novel reinforcing agents. It’s differentiated from traditional compounds in three ways. The first way is, we select, often unique, carbon black to deliver performance. Secondly, our process then is able to achieve dispersion of those carbon blacks not possible by conventional means and also preserves the rubber molecular weight. Finally, we have developed guidelines on how to use these that (thus maximising) maximizes the performance of the customer’s end-product. This results in a better reinforcing agent as well as better rubber and better dispersion all in a package with easy-to-use mixing guidelines.

Automotive Industries: How does Cabot Corporation ensure the scalability and accessibility of the E2C DX9660 solution for tire manufacturers across different regions?

Misbah: We have a commercial manufacturing facility located at our Port Dickson site in Malaysia, where our DX9660 grade and our other commercial E2C solutions are available at industrial scale for our customers globally. As such, we actively engage with tire manufacturers to understand their product needs. We continuously evaluate our capacity to ensure security of supply for our customers across the globe.

Automotive Industries: In what ways does the proprietary mixing process used in producing the E2C DX9660 contribute to its superior carbon black dispersion and improved rubber properties?

Misbah: Due to the propriety nature of our mixing technology, I cannot disclose this; however, what I can share at a high-level is our liquid mixing process.

First, there are steps we take to prepare the carbon black and bring it together with rubber that allows the dispersion. Second, the whole process from start to finish is carried out so that we do not degrade the rubber unnecessarily. Conventional mixing is challenged in that as dispersion improves, rubber, especially natural rubber is degraded leading to a compromise. We break that compromise.

Automotive Industries: Could you share some insights into the validation process and customer feedback regarding the on-road performance of the DX9660 elastomer composite?

Misbah: During the lab evaluation and plant mixing phases, our scientists collaborate closely with our customer’s scientist as they evaluate our DX9660 solution using Cabot’s Light Touch Mixing process.

Generally, customers conduct multiple field tests and the DX9660 grade is tested in various geographies during field testing with anywhere between 100 to 1,000 tires tested for various applications. These tire applications can include long haul, off-road, regional and city. Once the testing is complete, the results are then shared with Cabot’s E2C team.

Automotive Industries: How does Cabot Corporation envision the integration of E2C solutions like DX9660 in the broader context of sustainable practices within the automotive industry?

Misbah: Sustainability is driving a significant push towards new materials. This creates challenges for not only the development process but also the manufacturing process. Traditionally, tire plants have limited number of reinforcing agents that are used in their facility – proliferation causes capital expenditure. By having pre-mixed high performing solutions, constraints to what a formulator can choose are reduced, which enables optimization of formulations to meet local needs.

Secondly, often these new sustainable materials come with challenges of dispersion, mixing and use pre-mixed solutions like our E2C DX9660 solution, could make new bio-based solutions more viable.

Automotive Industries: Considering the Tire Technology International Awards for Innovation and Excellence, what significance does this recognition hold for Cabot Corporation and its commitment to sustainability?

Misbah: At Cabot, our purpose as a company is to create materials that improve daily life and enable a more sustainable future. This is the driving force behind everything we do. With a long-standing commitment to sustainability, sustainability plays an essential role in who we are as a company and will play an even more integral role in our future.

As such, we are immensely proud to be recognized by Tire Technology International for our ability to leverage the power of innovative chemistry to continuously develop new solutions that help tire formulators make measurable progress toward their sustainability targets and ambitions.

Together, with our customers, we remain committed to pursuing innovative solutions and processes that improve our collective sustainability performance and address the key sustainability challenges of today’s world.

Automotive Industries: Can you shed light on the role of Cabot’s E2C solutions in reducing end-of-life tires and promoting a more sustainable future for the tire industry?

Misbah: Oh, this is very important. Managing and reducing end-of-life-tires has taken significant importance across the globe, with some countries like Chile, enacting laws for off-road mining tires that limit commerce if end-of-life-tires is not managed. E2C solutions are known to not only increase the life of the first tread, thereby delaying the tire ending up in the pile, but can also breathe a second life to those tire carcasses via retreading. This can have a meaningful reduction in the waste that needs to be downcycled. We see similar scenarios in commercial on-road vehicle tires as well.

Automotive Industries: What future advancements or developments can we expect from Cabot Corporation in the realm of sustainable solutions for the automotive industry?

Misbah: We are very active in this space as our teams are working on a broad range of areas to help meet our net zero ambition. For our E2C portfolio, we have solutions for rubber that are not only used in tires but also other automotive parts where durability is key. Additionally, our EVOLVE(r) Sustainable Solutions technology platform will play a critical role as we look to develop new products and processes with a sustainability benefit and collaborate with our tire customers to deliver solutions that help address some of their most pressing sustainability challenges.

As background, EVOLVE Sustainable Solutions is designed to deliver reinforcing carbons across three sustainability categories including:

*       Recovered: Reinforcing carbons from circular value chains that are produced using materials recovered from end-of-life-tires, such as tire pyrolysis oils through an ISCC PLUS mass balance approach or reclaimed carbons co-pelletized with virgin carbon blacks.

*       Renewable: Reinforcing carbons made from renewable materials, such as bio-based feedstocks through an ISCC PLUS mass balance approach and from bio-based particles.

*       Reduced: Reinforcing carbons made with a reduced GHG footprint from decarbonization technologies, such as emissions capture technologies and other decarbonization processes such as CO2 capture and sequestration.

In conclusion, we have a number of SIGNIFICANT  projects in various stages of development actively underway with our customers and technology partners to develop a robust sustainable material pipeline. I am excited for the future innovations they will deliver for the automotive industry.