First within, now beyond the tyre: Michelin extends ResiCare remit

Michelin has expressed a wish to branch out “beyond the tyre” for a number of years. To this end, the company reports that after four years of technical and industrial development, its ResiCare subsidiary has found an initial commercial outlet for its high-performance responsible adhesive.

This advance centres on the timber industry and is the result of a collaboration that began in 2018 between ResiCare and Allin, a French specialist in the production of plywood panels. Since February, Allin has offered R’Ply, which Michelin calls the “first responsible plywood.” R’Ply integrates a ResiCare resin that is kinder to health and the environment.

Comprising layers of eco-certified okoume or poplar wood, R’Ply is a high-performance plywood for multiple applications. Michelin shares that the panels will soon be sold through DIY centres; R’Ply is also suited to use in vehicle and boat construction as well as in the building trade.

ResiCare in tyre production

ResiCare is also playing a role in Michelin’s tyre production. The subsidiary set up a mobile resin production unit at the Michelin site in Olsztyn, Poland in May, and Michelin’s ambition is to substitute, by 2025, more than 80 per cent of its usual adhesive for use in tyre textile reinforcement with a new ResiCare adhesive that is free from any substances of very high concern (SVHC).

Based on the Olsztyn model, ResiCare intends to set up other compact production units over the coming months in Europe and Asia, opening the way to an ambitious plan to deploy this textile reinforcement technology for all tyre producers.

Michelin states that ResiCare stems from the company’s desire to substitute its customary adhesives, used in tyre textile stiffeners, with formalin- and resorcinol-free adhesives that are safer to human health and to the environment. Convinced by the results obtained, Michelin and ResiCare now want to add value to this technology by extending it to non-tyre applications. Michelin comments that this approach is yet another illustration of its “all sustainable” strategy and its ambitions for development “beyond the tyre”.