Continental is watching trash heaps and recycling bins to find sustainable materials for future tires.
The company hopes to make all of its tires entirely from sustainable materials by 2050 at the latest, with renewable or recycled content from 15% to 20% today. In a press release, Continental explained how it is looking at agricultural waste such as rice husks and dandelions, as well as recycled plastic bottles, to help achieve this goal.
According to Continental, a passenger car tire can be composed of up to 100 different materials, and one of the most important is natural rubber, which, according to the company, makes up 10-40% of the weight of a modern tire.
Tire manufacturers are looking for alternative sources of natural rubber that can be grown more sustainably on an industrial scale, as Bridgestone has done a desert shrub called guayule in some racing tires. Continental aims to use specially grown dandelions as a source of natural rubber.
Continental is also developing silica tire fillers made from rice husk ash, which cannot be used as food or animal feed, the company noted. Converting them into silicon dioxide is also more energy efficient than traditional manufacturing processes, Continental claims.
Other tire fillers are currently made from crude oil, but Continental believes that plant-based canola oils and resins made from residues from paper and wood processing could replace them. Like rice husks, these are waste materials that have no other practical use, the company said.
Carbon black is another important ingredient, and in this case Continental wants to recycle old tires to recover the material. It recently signed an agreement with Pyrum Innovations to use the latter’s pyrolysis process, which involves using high heat from old tires to extract usable material. Continental also uses “mechanical processing” to separate other materials, including rubber, steel and textiles, from old tires.
Another recycled material that Continental wants to use is PET plastic from beverage bottles, which can be used to make polyester yarn for tire casings. According to Continental, each tire can hold between nine and fifteen bottles, depending on tire size.
Other tire manufacturers are also trying to make their products more environmentally friendly. Goodyear unveiled a prototype tire in January Contains 90% sustainable materialsand plans to start manufacturing tires from 70% sustainable materials this year. Michelin and Hyundai they were also partners in the development of sustainable materials for future electric tires.
This article was originally published by Motor Vehicle Authority, editorial partner ClassicCars.com.
