Goodyear wins Fedil award for rice husk ash silica development

Fedil, the Luxembourg Business Federation, has presented Goodyear a 2015 Environmental Award for its work with rice husk ash silica. The ‘resource efficiency’ category award was presented by Fedil president Robert Dennewald and Camille Gira, Luxembourg’s state secretary for sustainable development and infrastructure. Romain Hansen, Goodyear’s global director of technology projects, accepted the award on behalf of the ‘Rice Husk Ash Silica’ development team.

“Goodyear’s Rice Husk Ash Silica has several advantages for the environment. It reduces the amount of ash waste going into landfills and the silica conversion process requires significantly less energy. In addition, our tyres are more fuel efficient, thus reduce a vehicle’s CO2 output and at the same time provides high tyre wet grip so road safety is enhanced”, commented Carlos Cipollitti, general director of the Goodyear Innovation Center in Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg.

Silica is a tread reinforcing agent and the conversion of traditional, sand-based silica requires a significant amount of energy and very high temperatures. Silica produced from rice husk ash, on the other hand, is derived from ash generated by burning rice husk and requires significantly less energy. Over the last three years, engineers in Goodyear’s innovation centres in Luxembourg and the United States have worked to make this technology viable.