Analysis of Tire Tread Rubber Particles in Particulate Matters

Abstract

Rubber particles in piled particulate matters (PPMs) and settled particulate matters (SPMs) emitted by the abrasion of automobile tire tread have been measured by pyrolysis gas chromatography. The particulate matter samples were collected on the metropolitan expressway at Iikura site in Tokyo. Thirteen times of sampling have been performed through almost two years from June 1978 to March 1980 so that the seasonal variation for the particulate matters could be discussed in relation to weather factors such as atmospheric temperature, humidity, and precipitation. The curve of the variation for the amounts of SPMs have two peaks in summer and winter which were due to the increase of abrasion of tire tread rubber caused by high atmospliric temperature and dry weather, respectively. On the contrary, the rainfall was a dicreasing factor for the amount of particulate matters throughout a year. The size distribution curves (SD curves) for the total amounts of both PPMs and SPMs have two peaks at about 100 μm. The SD curve for the amounts of rubber in SPMs also have a peak at 100 μm, whereas the peak was at less than 50 μpm for the PPMs.
The rapid analysis for rubber in particulate matters was also discussed. One determination requires only 5.5 hours because of 5 hours of the extraction process for rubber used by ο-dichlorobenzene was eliminated from the analytical procedure. The analysis is applicable for more than 50 mg of particulate matter samples.