The “most sustainable” Continental tyre to date will arrive next month. With up to 65 per cent renewable, recycled and mass balance certified materials, the Continental UltraContact NXT “combines a high share of sustainable materials with maximum safety and performance.”
Bridgestone Corporation recently began producing oil and recovered carbon black through the pyrolysis of end-of-life tyres at a test facility in Japan. The tyre maker is operating this unit within the Bridgestone Innovation Park in Kodaira City, Tokyo as part of a joint project with Eneos Corporation.
To aid its development of eco-friendly tyres, Hankook Tire & Technology has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with petrochemical company Kumho Petrochemical Co., Ltd. (KKPC). Amongst other things, the MoU ensures Hankook Tire is first in line to receive KKPC’s Eco Solution-polymerised Styrene-Butadiene Rubber (Eco-SSBR) at “a fair price” once commercial its production commences in 2026.
A couple of weeks after Apollo Tyres unveiled car tyres containing 75% sustainable materials, JK Tyre & Industries has seen Apollo’s 75 and raised it 5. The company has produced a passenger car radial with 80% recycled and renewable materials – and says it will offer such a range “in due course.”
Nexen Tire has unveiled a sustainable concept tyre containing 52% renewable & recycled raw materials. This Nexen EcoTech tyre, which according to its sidewall is “for the greenish future,” consists of 44% renewable materials, including natural rubber, bio-based synthetic rubber, rice husk silica and bio-based rubber chemicals. A further 8% is recycled content, including cord made from recycled PET bottles and bead wire sourced from scrap metal.
Following on from its development of agricultural tyres with 75% sustainable materials, Apollo Tyres has now achieved the same goal with passenger vehicle tyres. These tyres – an Apollo Amperion high-performance tyre for electric vehicles and an Apollo Aspire 4G+ ultra-high performance car tyre – are not commercially available at present.
Apollo Tyres aims for at least 40 per cent of the raw materials it uses by 2030 to be sustainable, and to show what it can already achieve the tyre maker has produced an agricultural tyre containing 75 per cent sustainable materials. Although just a concept, Apollo is evaluating the product’s potential commercialisation.
In addition to unveiling a demonstration tyre containing 90% sustainable materials, Goodyear announces it will begin selling tyres with up to 70% sustainable-material content during the course of this year. No details are available at present, but Goodyear invites “consumers interested in purchasing this tyre” to register for updates at a US market-focused site.
When it commences operations in 2024, the end-of-life tyre (ELT) processing facility that Bolder Industries, Inc. and three partners are setting up in the Port of Antwerp will be capable of processing approximately 3 million ELTs a year. Bolder says this will “dramatically increase” production volumes for BolderBlack and BolderOil and satisfy increasing demand for these sustainable, circular raw materials in Europe and beyond.
In addition to producing tyres and automotive components, Continental has busied itself of late making upholstery fabrics from coffee grounds. This makes the substance remaining after Europeans brew more than 33 billion cups of coffee each year a potentially valuable raw material.
Mercedes-Benz is starting to equip its EQE and S-Class models with door handles containing materials gleaned from end-of-life tyres, and those involved in the project have been acknowledged for their contribution. Pyrolysis-based recycling specialist Pyrum Innovations, together with BASF, Mercedes-Benz and Witte Automotive, received a Materialica Design + Technology Award 2022 at this month’s eMove360 ° trade fair.
Two new Michelin tyres take the manufacturer a step closer towards its goal of production with 100% bio-sourced, renewable or recycled materials by 2050. Approved for road use, the non-production car and bus tyres respectively contain 45% and 58 % sustainable materials. With “performance levels strictly identical to current tyres” they prefigure the technologies we’ll see in Michelin products within two to three years.
Using a range of sustainable materials in the tyre tread compound, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has developed the Eagle GO. This concept tyre is fitted to Citroën’s new concept car, oli. The Eagle GO is the third Goodyear concept tyre developed with Citroën.
The goal at Continental is to exclusively obtain natural rubber for its tyres from responsible sources as of 2030. Confirmation of responsible sourcing is essential to natural rubber’s status as a sustainable raw material, and gaining this confirmation requires traceability within the supply chain. Although completely seamless traceability is currently technically impossible, Continental says it is “working at full speed” on a blueprint for the sustainable and responsible structuring of natural rubber supply chains.
Off-highway tyre specialist GRI has introduced an agricultural tyre range containing 37.5 per cent sustainable materials. The new Green XLR Earth series is made with a high percentage of recycled carbon black, soybean oil, HD silica and reclaimed rubber. GRI debuted the range at the Farm Progress Show in Iowa, USA.
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