Whenever we look around, we see different types of vehicles and different colours of vehicles but irrespective of the type of vehicle or the colour, we find that the tyres are black in colour. We are so used to seeing tyres in black colour that most of us have stopped wondering why tyres are always black in colour?
It may be interesting to note that this was not always true as the early tyres were white. The rubber itself has no colour and the most frequent additive that time was Zinc Oxide which is pure white. Zinc Oxide provided wear resistance to the rubber which is quite soft.
In early 20th Century, it was discovered that adding Carbon Black greatly improves the wear resistance. Carbon gives tyres all kinds of necessary characteristics like heat-resistant, abrasion resistant, tougher, more resilient and to make tyres last longer. However, availability or enough quantity of carbon Black was a challenge and several tyre makers came up with tyres with white sidewall and black tread. From the early 70’s almost all tyres produced were black.
As a result of adding carbon black to the rubber compound for tread and sidewall, tyre turns all black. Carbon black is black material produced by incomplete combustion of heavy petroleum products and it is also used as black pigment for printing ink, toner and mascara etc.
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