The roots of that specific plant contain the natural rubber latex that can be used in tire production. But before you begin collecting dandelions from your yard, keep in mind a special breed of Russian dandelion is required. Continental has already built and tested car tires with treads made fully of natural rubber derived from dandelions, and plans to begin rolling them out commercially in five to 10 years. Anyone with a yard to care for knows how quickly these pesky weeds can grow and reproduce. That’s where Continental sees dandelions as an alternative. Between 10-30% of a car tire includes natural rubber, with truck tires requiring “proportionally higher amounts,” according to the company. As a result of its long lifecycle and precise growing conditions, demand for natural rubber outpaces the availability. And its growth is limited to a small geographic slice of the world. While natural rubber, derived from the rubber tree, is itself renewable, the rubber tree must grow for seven years before it begins to produce the latex needed for rubber production. “How can we take what we’ve learned here and incorporate these into other tires in our portfolio?”Ĭontinental Tire sees dandelions as a replacement for natural rubber in its future tires. “Our learnings are in these demonstration tires,” Julian said, gesturing to a display at the Technology & Maintenance Council’s spring meeting earlier this year. They include soybean oil, rice oil, rapeseed oil and ash. Goodyear’s sustainable commercial tire incorporates 15 sustainable elements across 20 components within the tire. A selection of natural ingredients that could go into future truck tires, as displayed by Goodyear. That work, however, is already well underway. More work must be done to validate their performance. But you won’t find fully sustainable tires on the market soon. “They take out the petroleum and replace it with a smaller amount of soybean oil to still get the same performance,” she explained. She told that in one concept truck tire, a red Solo cup of soybean oil has replaced the petroleum that would go into a traditional truck tire. Jessica Julian leads product marketing for Goodyear Tire & Rubber. Truck manufacturers are under immense pressure to decarbonize, and that can’t be done without some attention given to the big round rubber components that connect them to the asphalt.įuture tires may always look as they do today – round and black – but what goes into making them is likely to change drastically. Sounds like the trappings of an entrée at a fancy vegan restaurant.īut these are some of the ingredients that will likely go into future tires as the truck tire industry looks to reduce the environmental impact of its products.
0 kommentar(er)
