Raw Materials
Hankook Tire has announced it will provide formic acid, an eco-friendly coagulant, to rubber farmers in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. It says this measure furthers its “commitment to enhance the sustainability across its value chain for natural rubber.”
The US Energy Information Administration recently forecast that the global light-duty vehicle fleet (essentially cars, vans and pick-ups) would increase by 70 per cent by 2050. Closer to home, the UK Department for Transport has forecast that car and van traffic will increase by 35 per cent and 70 per cent respectively over the next 30 years. By another measure and more immediately, global consumption of natural rubber for tyre manufacture is forecast to increase by 33 per cent by 2030.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has taken a further step towards its aim of achieving material sustainability by producing a tyre with 70 per cent sustainable material content. While this Goodyear Assurance tyre is a demonstration model and won’t be offered for sale just now, innovations contained within will certainly appear in future ranges.
On 17 December, Birla Carbon executed a US$750 million Sustainability Linked Loan (SLL) with a syndicate of more than 15 banks and intends to use the proceeds from the loan to refinance its existing debts. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) linked to the facility include: “direct CO2 intensity, bringing circular products to market, and an external rating of Sustainability”. The fund’s direct connection with “bringing circular products to market” could be interpreted as an indication that the company is willing to invest in technologies such as pyrolysis which seeks to recover carbon black from end-products such as tyres.
Australian waste tyre processor Pearl Global Limited, a firm claiming to possess a proprietary technology superior to traditional pyrolysis, has appointed a new chief executive officer. David Wheeley will commence in this capacity on 1 February 2022.
With immediate effect, tyre maker Continental will handle a portion of its natural rubber purchasing through HeveaConnect, a digital trading platform designed to ensure greater transparency and sustainability in the natural rubber supply chain. Reporting this new arrangement, Continental’s Dr Andrea Appel explains that the goal is to procure all materials from “responsible sources,” and that the key to achieving this “lies in innovative technologies and digitalisation, which can make a decisive contribution to transparency in complex supply chains.”
UK firm Low Sulphur Fuels Ltd. (LSF) is the winner of the second Continental Challenge for sustainable material solutions. The Amersham-based enterprise prevailed over more than 50 participants from across the world with its conversion technology that can produce low sulphur distillate from end-of-life hydrocarbon materials such as oils and tyres.
Nexen Tire is raising prices across its entire product range, effective 1 February 2022. According to the company, “rising raw material prices as well as freight and logistics costs” are behind the price hike. No details of the percentage increase have yet been released.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber may soon be utilising carbon black produced from methane and/or biomethane in its tyres thanks to a new partnership with US-based clean materials firm Monolith. The two companies have signed a collaboration agreement and letter of intent covering the development and potential use of such products, which are made through a plasma-based methane pyrolysis process.
End-of-life tyre raw materials firm Bolder Industries has purchased a former Pyrolyx facility in the USA. It will retrofit the plant in Terre Haute, Indiana, which ceased operations in March 2020, with the Bolder Industries proprietary solution. Bolder will use the facility to increase its manufacturing capacity and commence production there early in 2023.
JK Tyre CFO Sanjeev Aggarwal is making margin improvement in the face of inflationary pressures a top priority, according to a recent interview with India’s Economic Times newspaper. And therefore the company will pass on raw material price increases to its customers.
After its first 18 months of existence, members of the BlackCycle R&D project met at Michelin’s technology centre in Ladoux, France on 22 November for the consortium’s first workshop. Some 120 international industry leaders, academics, H2020 project coordinators, politicians, and institutional representatives from 20 countries exchanged ideas and discussed the deployment of circular economy initiatives in Europe.
Every year, Pirelli awards just nine of the more than 14,000 suppliers throughout its global chain for distinguishing themselves in making the tyre maker’s supply chain even more sustainable, innovative and of the highest possible quality. Announcing the recipients of its 2021 Supplier Awards, Pirelli says the main selection criterion was care for the environment through an increasingly sustainable supply chain – with lower CO2 emissions, high quality, innovation, speed and global presence.
As of 1 December, Bridgestone Corporation has completed selling all shares in its Bridgestone (Huizhou) Synthetic Rubber Co., Ltd. subsidiary. The new owner of the business, which manufactures synthetic rubber for passenger car tyres, is Taiwan’s LCY Chemical Corporation. Bridgestone announced the planned sale on 15 June 2021.
Japan’s Itochu Corporation announced today the commercial launch of Project TREE, an initiative that uses a blockchain-based traceability system to ensure the sustainability and traceability of natural rubber. Partners participating in the Project include Itochu subsidiaries and tyre manufacturers, and the UK will be the first market to benefit.
Mike’s Photography