During this period, the Paris Olympics gold medal competitions were in full swing. The performance of the athletes touched the hearts of the audience. If a good oil can make the car perform better, for athletes, choosing a pair of excellent running shoes will have a crucial impact on better exerting personal strength (Is this the secret to winning gold? ) The secret of whether a sports shoe is good or bad lies in the midsole of the shoe.
How can we comprehensively improve the performance of shoes such as "lightness, softness, and elasticity"? Today, let me tell you the secret of midsole materials!
The Soul of Running Shoes
What is the secret of the midsole?
The midsole is the core part of sports shoes, located between the outsole and the insole, and is mainly responsible for providing cushioning, support and energy feedback.
The material and design of the midsole directly affect the comfort, stability and overall performance of sports shoes. Its quality determines the quality of the shoes, and it is also the part with high technical content. More and more brands are competing to invest in research and development.
In June this year, a Chinese sports brand released a new shock-absorbing material jointly developed with Sinopec Shoe Material Innovation Laboratory at a sports shoe new product launch conference - Fusion Thermoplastic Elastomer.
It is understood that the midsoles of the new shoes are all made of the ES series SEBS (hydrogenated styrene-butadiene block copolymer) elastomer new material independently developed by Sinopec, which makes sports shoes lighter, softer and more elastic.
So far, Sinopec has developed 3 new SEBS brands for sports shoe midsoles, all of which are used in sports shoes
What is SEBS material?
It is soft and elastic, what kind of material is this?
SEBS is a thermoplastic elastomer, a linear triblock copolymer with polystyrene as the terminal segment and ethylene-butene copolymer obtained by hydrogenation of polybutadiene as the middle elastic block. It is a polymer material between rubber and resin, which can not only replace part of rubber, but also make plastics well modified.
What are the advantages of using SEBS in running shoes?
How elastic is the midsole made of SEBS? Let’s see an experiment first.
Want to achieve a balance between performance and price in running shoes? It can be achieved!
Traditional sports shoes mostly use EVA foam soles, but because EVA plastic materials have poor properties in terms of softness, compression resistance, anti-slip properties, elasticity and material stretchability, EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber), POE (polyolefin elastomer), OBCs (semi-crystalline thermoplastic polyolefin elastomer), TPE and other elastomers are usually added to modify it.
SEBS foam material has good compatibility with EVA. Compared with other modified materials, it has the advantages of better hardness range, soft touch and lower resistance to compression distortion. Currently, many internationally renowned sports shoe brands have designated the use of SEBS foam material.
EVA modified with SEBS has better dynamic viscoelastic properties. When SEBS is evenly dispersed in the EVA system, it can reduce the force between molecular chains and play a plasticizing role. At the same time, SEBS has better flexibility, heat resistance, good compatibility and miscibility, and using SEBS to fill oil can reduce material costs.
Therefore, SEBS can replace elastomers such as butyl rubber and EPDM rubber and be blended with EVA to produce materials with superior performance and low price, which can meet the needs of application in the field of sports shoe midsoles, thereby improving the wearing comfort and cost performance of sports shoes.
In the future, with the development of the economy, the improvement of people's living standards, and the enhancement of environmental awareness, SEBS, as a green, pollution-free and lightweight product, will be more widely used in the fields of shoe outsoles, thermal insulation boards and pillow cores due to its light weight, good aging resistance, non-toxicity and harmlessness to the human body.