Yokohama Tire has in the meantime developed tires that are 80 percent petroleum-free, says Dan Guiney, director of technical services. The company's dB Super E-spec car tire and its ADVAN ENV-R1 racing tire both use modified natural rubber compounds and processing oil that is derived from orange peels, a waste by-product of fruit juice processing. The company, which introduced the dB Super E-spec orange oil-infused model last year, reportedly charges roughly 30 percent more for the green tire.
Michelin says that it employs sunflower oil in the rubber compound of its premium Primacy MXM4 all-weather tires to improve traction in winter conditions and shorten braking distances in the rain.
Other tire-makers are looking beyond traditional rubber trees to develop new, potentially cheaper and more sustainable crop sources of natural latex such as Russian dandelion, a central Asian weed variety, and guayule, a desert shrub that grows in the U.S. Southwest and Mexico, Herzlich says.
Still other companies are turning to renewable synthetic rubbers made of precursor chemicals that are grown in vats by biotech-modified microorganisms. In 2007 Goodyear entered into a research collaboration with the industrial biochemical firm Genencor of Palo Alto, Calif., (a subsidiary of Danisco, a Denmark-based food ingredient company) to develop microbes that can grow the isoprene monomer, or what the company calls BioIsoprene, says Rich LaDuca, senior director of business development at Genencor. Goodyear will use the BioIsoprene to cook up a synthetic rubber that mimics natural rubber, which is composed of polymerized natural isoprene. The biotech firm will offer to supply the sustainable chemical to other tire manufacturers as well.
A research group at Oregon State University recently reported that microcellulose, or microcrystalline cellulose, which can be made from various plant fibers, provides a promising alternative to the heavy (and costly) silica mineral fillers now used to reduce tires' rolling resistance. The lightweight microcellulose could save even more fuel. More study is needed, however, to confirm the long-term durability of tires that incorporate this natural additive.
In the meantime, the tire industry is trying harder to recycle more of the estimated 300 million used tires that are discarded annually in the U.S. Tire recycling has grown markedly in recent years and small quantities of processed rubber are reused in some tires, but these efforts are limited by the quality of the rubber feedstock, Herzlich says. One company, Georgia-based Lehigh Technologies, has developed a process that freezes the rubber with liquid nitrogen before grinding it into pulverized rubber feedstock that could go into tires.
In time, the ongoing installation of new precision tire-making machinery that can hold much tighter manufacturing tolerances will allow tire-makers to produce tires that have little extra weight beyond the design spec, Herzlich says. "If you take a half ounce out of a tire," he explains, "it saves fuel because it makes it easier to rotate the wheel."
Although the overall environmental legacy of the car tire is still decidedly black, the appearance of fuel-saving designs, biosourced raw materials and more vigorous recycling programs have given its future a distinctly greener hue.
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Add Commentdose any one know what do "vegetable-based processing oils " mean ??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOils are hydrocarbons, and hydrocarbons can come from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, etc.) or from sustainable sources like plants and even animals. A vegetable-based oil will be an oil derived from vegetables instead of from fossil fuels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd rather have a good low rolling resistance tire as opposed to a low oil tires as most of the oil used is the dregs of the refining process which isn't worth much and very dirty to burn. They were paying until recently to get rid of the Petro-coke used to make carbon black it was so worthless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn my EV's I use low rolling resistance tires and they give me about 15% more range. But anyone can get better mileage by running the max pressure your tires can handle and they still handle ok. So test them, handling, braking after pumping them up to make sure nothing bad happens. If the car uses different pressures front to rear, keep that ratio when increasing pressures . And watch for wear in the center. If it gets noticeable, cut the pressure back some. But doing this can give 10% better mileage on many cars.
Add that to driving so you brake much less by giving good room between your car and the one in front and take your foot off the gas when you first see the light turn red, ect can increase mileage by 30%. Not bad for a little extra pressure and safer driving.
Then when getting new tires, get LRR ones.
It is wonderful to have smart and eco-friendly tires.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut can one have puncture-proof tire, like bullet-proof vest? That would help to eliminate one of the worst hassles in driving -- unless of course, the cost has been impossibly steep.
There is no such thing as a "bullet proof" vest, kevlar and other materials are bullet resistant, thus a big enough bullet will puncture a "bullet proof" vest. This is why the body armor industry now refers to them as body armor, or bullet resistant vests.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn a side note, tires have incorporated a number of puncture resistant technologies for over thirty years. First with woven steel belts and recently with woven kevlar belts. Yes the same stuff as body armor.
Modern tires are one of the most reliable components on your car. High quality tires can last 60,000 miles. As far as flats go, I've only had 1 flat in the last ten years, and that was on a five year old heavily worn tire.
Regards,
Joe Dokes
There already are known ways of achieving anti-gravity, and the tire industry is a strong opponent, which figures. That which is good for man and the planet is not good for business.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBack in the early eighties, the french car manufacturer Citroen patented a technique to convert tires into fuel using pyrolysis. They never applied it, because of death threats to their staff....Now just who do you think was responsable for the blackmail? Could it have been a fuel producer? And the technique to recycle tires has still not been applied! So they still provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes and malaria in shanty town dumps.....Ah! the joys of the free market!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour comments of death threats preventing the use of new technologies, is similar to the "50 mpg carburetor" of the 1920's. Oh-- how these stories have such long lives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTires are being recycled, once shredded into filler for road surfaces and many molded products. The free markets are using recycled materials because they are very cost effective, but I guess that this does not fit your "bad guy" image of free markets.