Solvay is investing at its Livorno, Italy site to launch the company’s first unit of circular highly dispersible silica (HDS) made with bio-based sodium silicate derived from rice husk ash (RHA). Rice husk is an abundantly available agricultural waste. Combustion of rice husk produces RHA, which consists mainly of silica... Read more →

In an important step towards safer and more sustainable goods movement through autonomous transportation, Goodyear and Gatik (earlier post) have demonstrated, in a proof-of-concept, that intelligent tires powered by Goodyear SightLine technology can accurately estimate tire-road friction potential and provide real-time information to Gatik’s automated driving system (ADS). The capability... Read more →

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company unveiled a demonstration tire comprising 90% sustainable materials. This demonstration tire has passed all applicable regulatory testing as well as Goodyear’s internal testing. A sustainable material is defined as a bio-based/renewable, recycled material or one that may be produced using or contributing to other... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Vienna (Austria) have demonstrated that tire wear particle (TWP)-derived compounds are readily taken up by lettuce with measured maximum leaf concentrations between ∼0.75 for N-phenyl-N′-(1,3-dimethylbutyl)-p-phenylenediamine (6PPD) and 20 μg g–1 for hexamethoxymethyl melamine (HMMM). In an open-access paper in the ACS journal Environmental Science &... Read more →

Smithers, a leading provider of testing, consulting, information, and compliance services, released a new whitepaper reporting the effects of temperature on tire rolling resistance. Tire rolling resistance is closely related to overall vehicle fuel economy or range in both ICE and electric vehicles (EVs). Currently, it is understood that rolling... Read more →

Hankook Tire has launched the company’s first tires in the US that are specifically designed for electric vehicles (EVs). The iON evo AS and iON evo AS SUV are the first in Hankook’s full line of EV tires and have been designed to meet the demands of EVs in all... Read more →

Continental and Security Matters (SMX), an innovative tech platform specializing in digital tracking using unalterable chemical-based barcodes, have succeeded for the first time in verifying beyond doubt a marker substance for natural rubber in a tire, and thus throughout the entire production process. The dedicated marker technology, which both companies... Read more →

LanzaTech and Sumitomo Riko Company have entered into a joint-development agreement to reuse rubber, resin and urethane waste for the production of a key chemical intermediate, isoprene. Isoprene is produced by plants, and along with its polymers, is the main component of natural rubber. Natural rubber is widely regarded as... Read more →

The US Department of Agriculture has awarded Bridgestone and several partners a $35-million grant to continue its investment in desert shrub guayule (earlier post) to advance a climate-smart domestic rubber industry and offer a solution for growers amid the ongoing water crisis in the Southwestern US. The grant will be... Read more →

A new method to ensure consistency and quality in rubber manufacturing, developed by a research team from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Eastman, is likely to show real-world impact on material sustainability and durability for products such as car tires. An open-access paper on their approach, “Sulfur Dispersion Quantitative... Read more →

London-based EV tire manufacturer ENSO said it is in discussions with multiple international car makers and has begun trials with major fleet operators. Multiple EV manufacturers have expressed interest in fitting ENSO’s range-extending, emissions-reducing tires. Fleet operators, meanwhile, are investigating fitting ENSO’s tyres to their electric vehicles to help lower... Read more →

Teijin Frontier, the Teijin Group’s fibers and products converting company, has developed an eco-friendly tire cord made from an adhesive that does not contain resorcinol formaldehyde (RF), which is harmful to the human body and the environment, and also incorporates a low-environmental impact chemically recycled polyester fiber for rubber reinforcement.... Read more →

To stay ahead of growing demand in the electric vehicle (EV) market, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has launched the all-new Goodyear ElectricDrive all-season tire and two new sizes for its ultra-high performance tire, the Goodyear ElectricDrive GT. With the addition of four new sizes to its EV tire... Read more →

A new study by The University of South Australia (UniSA) has tested and verified the structural integrity of walls constructed from tires packed with earth, with the results potentially providing new opportunities for the reuse of end-of-life tires in the construction industry. Tire waste represents a major sustainability challenge globally,... Read more →

As part of its commitment to accelerating the use of sustainable technologies in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, Bridgestone Americas (Bridgestone) has developed an all-new race tire with a sidewall made with natural rubber derived from the guayule desert shrub. Bridgestone made the competition debut of these Firestone Firehawk alternate race... Read more →

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, which supplied essential products for NASA’s Apollo program, including the Apollo 11 mission which landed on the moon 53 years ago, will continue that tradition—focusing on lunar vehicle tires—by joining Lockheed Martin in its development of a lunar mobility vehicle in partnership with General... Read more →

India-based global tire-maker Apollo Tyres, which markets its products under the global brands Apollo and Vredestein, will launch its first dedicated micro-mobility tire, the Vredestein Cargo. Developed specifically for electrically assisted cargo bikes used for urban deliveries, the new tire will make its debut at Eurobike 2022 in Frankfurt, Germany... Read more →

Hyundai Motor Group (the Group) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Michelin to develop next-generation tires optimized for premium electric vehicles (EVs). The agreement is a follow-up to the first five-year partnership signed in November 2017 jointly to develop an exclusive tire for IONIQ 5 and carry out experiments... Read more →

New research has found that mixing rubber from used tires with bitumen can halve the rate of sun damage to roads. Researchers at RMIT University in Australia collaborated with Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) to discover the ideal blend that is both UV-resistant and withstands traffic loads, with the potential to... Read more →

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 →