The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company announced a new formulation of its popular Endurance WHA waste haul tire made with a renewable soybean oil compound. The Endurance WHA is now made with soybean oil, which replaces a portion of the petroleum-based materials used in its production. The soybean oil in... Read more →

Asahi Kasei has developed a system to calculate the carbon footprint of products (CFP) for the synthetic rubber and elastomers products Asadene, Tufdene, Asaprene, Tufprene, Asaflex, Tuftec, and S.O.E. with CFP data provision to customers scheduled to begin in June 2022. CFP visualization is achieved utilizing the DEEP (Data Exploration... Read more →

Yokohama Tire Corporation (YTC), a subsidiary of Yokohama Rubber, will be supplying YOKOHAMA tires to about 18 cars competing in the 100th Pikes Peak International Hill Climb to be held on 26 June. The supplied tires will include the first provision of YOKOHAMA’s ADVAN A052 street sports tires made from... Read more →

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company announced an important step in its global journey to fully replace petroleum-derived oils by 2040. For the first time in its commercial truck tires, Goodyear is replacing a portion of the petroleum-based materials used in production of some of its most popular Metro Miler... Read more →

As part of a broader initiative to accelerate the use of sustainable technologies in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, Bridgestone Americas (Bridgestone) announced plans to debut Firestone Firehawk race tires made with guayule natural rubber grown and extracted at the company’s guayule R&D facilities in Arizona. (Earlier post.) The guayule race... Read more →

Bridgestone Americas is partnering with LanzaTech to address end-of-life tire waste. The two companies will co-develop the first dedicated end-of-life tire recycling process leveraging LanzaTech’s proprietary CCT (Carbon Capture and Transformation) technology, creating a pathway toward tire material circularity and the decarbonization of new tire production. According to the Tire... Read more →

Teijin Frontier Co., Ltd., the Teijin Group’s fibers and products converting company, has developed an eco-friendly staple polyester nanofiber that offers excellent performance to reinforce rubber uses in products including automotive tires, hoses and belts. Staple fibers—textile fibers of discrete length—are used to strengthen rubber in products required to withstand... Read more →

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is collaborating with the US Department of Defense (DoD), the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) and BioMADE to work with Ohio-based Farmed Materials in a multi-year, multi-million-dollar program to develop a domestic source of natural rubber from a specific species of dandelion. Natural rubber... Read more →

The Audi Environmental Foundation is developing filters for urban runoff in conjunction with the Technical University of Berlin (TUB). The filters prevent tire wear particles and other environmentally harmful substances from being washed into sewers and bodies of water along with rainwater. Initial field and lab tests have now demonstrated... Read more →

Small particles from tires inhibit the growth and cause adverse behavioral changes in organisms found in freshwater and coastal estuary ecosystems, according to two new Oregon State University studies. The findings are part of a continued effort by scientists to unravel the impacts of microplastics and nanoplastics on aquatic ecosystems... Read more →

Every time it rains, fish living downstream of storm drains are exposed to pollutants, including the tire-derived compound 6PPD-quinone, in the runoff. Recently, this substance has been linked to massive die-offs of coho salmon across the US West Coast. Now, researchers in Canada report that exposure to 6PPD-quinone at environmentally... Read more →

The US Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA) is urging congressional leadership to continue working on tire policy and related transportation sustainability initiatives. While the recently passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) includes several provisions that would advance scrap tire markets and improve the resiliency of the nation’s infrastructure, USTMA has... Read more →

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has released a demonstration tire with 70% sustainable-material content. The 70% sustainable-material tire includes 13 featured ingredients across nine different tire components, including: Carbon black is included in tires for compound reinforcement and to help increase their life and has traditionally been made by... Read more →

Methane pyrolysis technology company Monolith, a leader in clean materials production (e.g., hydrogen, earlier post; carbon black, earlier post), has received conditional approval for a $1.04-billion loan from the US Department of Energy (DOE). Established via the Title XVII Innovative Energy Loan Guarantee Program, the loan will allow Monolith to... Read more →

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has launched the new ElectricDrive GT, Goodyear’s first replacement tire in North America tuned for electric vehicles (EVs). The Goodyear ElectricDrive GT is an ultra-high performance, all-season tire that delivers long-lasting tread wear and a quiet ride for EV drivers and passengers. Electric vehicles... Read more →

Murata Manufacturing and Michelin have co-developed a new generation of RFID modules that are embedded into tires. The robust passive RFID tags require no external power supply and will continue to operate while being driven on for extremely high mileages. This simple yet elegant technology delivers low-cost and easy tire... Read more →

Monolith, a leader in clean carbon black production, signed a collaboration agreement and letter of intent (LOI) with The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, one of the world's largest tire companies. As part of the agreements, Monolith expects to collaborate with Goodyear on the development and potential use of clean... Read more →

Asahi Kasei, a diversified Japanese multinational company, concluded an agreement with Shell Eastern Petroleum (Pte) Ltd. regarding the supply of butadiene derived from plastic waste and biomass. Asahi Kasei plans to begin producing and marketing sustainable solution-polymerized styrene-butadiene rubber (S-SBR) using sustainable butadiene at its plant in Singapore by the... Read more →

The US Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA) will produce cryogenically milled tire tread (CMTT) and provide samples to researchers to advance scientific study on tire and road wear particles (TRWP). In 2020, independent global emissions testing company Emissions Analytics reported that pollution from tire wear can be 1,000 times worse than... Read more →

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority (SARTA) in Ohio are collaborating to test intelligent tire sensors and prototype tires on SARTA’s fleet of diesel and hydrogen fuel cell-powered (HFC) buses. The intelligent tires leverage Goodyear’s TPMS Plus on-vehicle sensors to send real-time data... Read more →

Goodyear and Gatik announced a multi-year collaboration with a goal to advance the development of mobility solutions for the autonomous B2B short-haul logistics industry. The collaboration will contribute to safer, more sustainable goods movement while reducing costs for Gatik’s customers in the B2B short-haul market nationwide. Gatik has established the... Read more →

Goodyear has developed a non-pneumatic (airless) tire (NPT) and wheel assembly to support autonomous vehicle transportation in a city setting for in-field use with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA). For the past three years, Goodyear and Local Motors have tested an Olli shuttle supported by the NPT at Goodyear testing... Read more →

Waste tires have been used mainly for recovering energy sources; only small proportions of the carbon black contained in these tires are recycled, since mineral ash accounts for around 20% of its content. A new process developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP is able to isolate almost... Read more →

Ricardo, in collaboration with the Arup AECOM consortium, is supporting the UK Department for Transport (DfT) in developing a system for measuring non-exhaust emissions (NEE) of particles, under real-world driving conditions. Non-exhaust emissions of particles from road vehicles primarily arise from a combination of brake wear, tire wear, road surface... Read more →

The BMW Group is stepping up its activities in the field of sustainability, becoming the first automotive manufacturer worldwide to equip its cars with tires using certified sustainable natural rubber and rayon, a wood-based material used to strengthen the tires. The company will source 22-inch tires in the first instance... Read more →

Continental is extending its commitment to sustainability in the natural rubber supply chain. The tire manufacturer and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) have agreed on a significant expansion of their project to ensure full traceability of the natural rubber supply chain in the Indonesian province... Read more →

Rice University scientists and their colleagues at C-Crete Technologies have optimized a process to convert waste from rubber tires into graphene that can, in turn, be used to strengthen concrete. The research led by Rice chemist James Tour and Rouzbeh Shahsavari of C-Crete is detailed in the journal Carbon. Concrete... Read more →

The Michelin Group recently signed a transport commitment with the French shipping line NEOLINE. NEOLINE’s decarbonized shipping service relies on wind energy as the main propulsion for its 136m cargo ships with 4200 m2 of sails. The transport commitment signed by Michelin concerns the transport of tires loaded in containers... Read more →

Bridgestone Corporation announced results of its four-year collaboration with genomic big data solutions company NRGene to advance the commercialization of guayule, an alternative to natural rubber, as part of the effort to diversify its sources of raw materials. The combined effort focused on analyzing DNA to allow more efficient use... Read more →

Greenergy will invest in Front End Engineering Design (FEED) of a project to produce low-carbon transportation fuels from waste tires. In the first phase, the planned facility will process up to 300 tons of shredded tires each day to produce low-carbon, low-sulfur drop-in fuels that can be blended into diesel... Read more →

Bridgestone Corporation has developed an optimization system for Pará rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) plantations. The system utilizes big data to contribute to higher yield at these rubber farms. The natural rubber currently used to produce tires is sourced from the Pará rubber tree, which primarily grows in Southeast Asia. Natural... Read more →

The Urban Taraxagum bicycle tire from Continental has won the German Sustainability Award 2021 in the category “Responsible Design”. The tire is the first series-built bicycle tire made of dandelion rubber. Series production of a tire made of dandelion rubber is an important milestone in Continental’s sustainability strategy. The dandelion... Read more →

A team led by researchers at the University of Washington Tacoma, UW and Washington State University Puyallup have found that a highly toxic oxidation product of tire rubber particles turns streams toxic and may be responsible for the annual die-offs observed among migrating adult salmon across the US Pacific Northwest.... Read more →

The US Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA), in partnership with The Ray, a nonprofit proving ground for sustainable transportation technologies, announced a research project to assess and compile existing research on the performance, environmental impacts and benefits of using ground tire rubber (GTR) in asphalt. The compiled research will result in... Read more →

Japan-based Bridgestone, the world’s largest tire manufacturer, has launched “A Layered Journey”—a new global campaign highlighting the company’s efforts to incorporate sustainability in its value chain with a focus on the sustainable procurement of natural rubber. The campaign travels from the forest where rubber trees are tapped for latex, continuing... Read more →

While tires remain one of the most recycled products in the US, end-of-life markets are not keeping pace with the annual generation of scrap tires, according to a new report released by the US Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA). The 2019 Scrap Tire Management Report—USTMA’s 14th—reveals that almost 76% of scrap... Read more →

The jury of the “Journey to Automation” award presented by the European Rubber Journal (ERJ) named Continental the Overall Winner in the award’s six categories and winner of the Tire Technology Award. The UK-based trade journal honored Continental for its Conti C.A.R.E. tire concept for future electric mobility solutions. Conti... Read more →

BASF SE is investing €16 million into Pyrum Innovations AG, a technology company specialized in the pyrolysis of waste tires, headquartered in Dillingen/Saar, Germany. With the investment, BASF will support the expansion of Pyrum’s pyrolysis plant in Dillingen and the further roll out of the technology. Pyrum is currently running... Read more →

The German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and technology company Continental are making a rubber supply chain seamlessly electronically traceable—from cultivation in Indonesia and further processing through to tire production—for the first time. The creation of sustainable and traceable supply chains is an integral part of our... Read more →

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company recently eclipsed 3 million miles of data from road tests and field trials with its connected tires. (Earlier post.) Connected tires—those with embedded sensors—are able to “talk” to the vehicle and the road and measure characteristics of the tire, leading to potential enhanced vehicle... Read more →

Pollution from tire wear can be 1,000 times worse than a car’s exhaust emissions, Emissions Analytics has found. Emissions Analytics is an independent global testing and data specialist for the scientific measurement of real-world emissions and fuel efficiency for passenger and commercial vehicles and non-road mobile machinery. Harmful particulate matter... Read more →

Pirelli has developed intelligent tires that use the 5G network to transmit information regarding the road surface. In Turin, the company presented the “World-first 5G enhanced ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) services” use case. The demonstration took place during “The 5G Path of Vehicle-to-Everything Communication” event organized by 5GAA –... Read more →

In May 2018, Bridgestone Corporation announced the development of the world’s first polymer to bond rubber and resins at the molecular level. The new polymer features unprecedented durability with crack resistance that is more than five times higher, abrasion resistance that is more than 2.5 times higher, and tensile strength... Read more →

Global tire maker announced that the company showed tangible results in its efforts for technology based innovation and digital transformation by developing the Virtual Compound Design (VCD) system, a predictive model for tire compound properties using artificial intelligence. The VCD system predicts the characteristics of compounds and draws the most... Read more →

Although the presence of microplastics in the environment is raising concerns, the amount of microplastics in air and water is small compared to another polymer that pollutes air and water: micro rubber. These are the finest particles resulting from tire abrasion, which enter soil and air via the road surface... Read more →

Continental and Pyrolyx have been cooperating on developments in the technology field of recovered carbon black over recent years. This joint development commitment aimed to lay the foundation for using recovered carbon black (rCB) in various tire segments during tire production. Pyrolyx and Continental have now announced that the companies... Read more →

Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. and Kansai University have developed a new technology to generate electric power from the rotation of a tire. The Energy Harvester takes advantage of the build up of static electricity—known as frictional charging—to produce power efficiently as the tire turns. Inside the Energy Harvester are two... Read more →

Michelin and General Motors presented a new generation of airless wheel technology—the Michelin Uptis Prototype (or “Unique Puncture-proof Tire System”)—at the Movin’On Summit for sustainable mobility in Montréal. GM intends to develop this airless wheel assembly with Michelin and aims to introduce it on passenger vehicles as early as 2024.... Read more →

Researchers at Henan Polytechnic University in China have hydrotreated the oil derived from hydrothermal liquefaction of scrap tires (STO) with waste engine oil (WEO) using five different activated carbon-supported noble metal catalysts—Pd/C, Pt/C, Ru/C, Ir/C, and Rh/C—for the production of liquid fuels. In a paper in the journal Fuel, they... Read more →

A team of researchers in Italy has transformed chars—the least valuable by-product of waste-tire pyrolysis—into highly efficient Oxygen Reduction Reaction (ORR) catalysts for use in alkaline fuel cells and metal air batteries. A paper on their work is published in the Journal of Power Sources. The dramatic growth in the... Read more →