Recent progress in the rubber antioxidants: A review

Elastomers, especially diene-rubbers containing unsaturated double carbon bonds in the main chains, are vulnerable to thermal/oxygen aging, which would make the elastomers less elastic and result in earlier failure of the elastomer products. Therefore, for a real application, the antioxidants are indispensable to retard the thermal-oxidative-aging process of the rubber composites and then prolong the service life. In this review, we systematically review the recent progress of antioxidants for rubber. We first give a brief introduction of the oxidation process and oxidation mechanism for rubbers. Then, we present the strategies to improve the anti-oxidative efficiency of rubber antioxidants. After that, recent advances to minimize the blooming and migration of antioxidants are summarized. Furthermore, the toxicity issues of rubber antioxidants are discussed. While extensive efforts have been directed toward the research of rubber antioxidants, there are still several scientific and technological issues that remain unsolved, and the perspectives on the future trends of rubber antioxidants are highlighted.