Sustainability of the Tire Industry: Through a Material Approach

Abstract

The tire industry is basically a slow-changing industry, however, in the present era of fast change, a number of environmental and sustainability-related issues are impacting the tire industry to a large extent. Non-pneumatic tire, tires for electric vehicles, tires with sensors is talk of the day to meet the future requirements of the automobile industries. All these tires need to have fuel efficiency, safety at high speed, and low noise. Tire designers and material scientists are jointly involved in tire design, material design to achieve targeted tire performance properties. Material scientists are focusing their research mainly on sustainable materials as an alternate to present fossil-based material. In this chapter, authors will share different research work are being carried out on sustainable materials particularly for the tire industry. Reuse-Regenerate-Recycle is one of the research areas to reduce the consumption of virgin fossil fuel-based materials. Natural rubber (NR) is one of the commonly used rubbers in the tire industry. It is a naturally occurring material and helps the tire industry to achieve sustainability in the long run. However, the imbalance between the demand and supply of NR, worldwide scientists are doing research on Guayule, Dandelion to obtain a 54suitable alternative of NR. With the introduction of stringent requirements of tire labeling criteria by the European Union, materials scientists are bound to use alternative of carbon black reinforcing filler. One of the major alternatives of carbon black is silica which is also an eco-friendly sustainable material. Synthetic rubbers using plant-derived materials or biomass (agricultural waste) are came into the picture, Liquid Farnesene rubber is also another newly introduced polymer from bio-origin. Research efforts in developing microbes that can grow an isoprene monomer used to make a mimics NR is also undergoing. Fillers which are the next bulk consuming material after polymer are being explored from non-petroleum-based origin like silica, clay, and from bio-origin like rice husk ash, cornflower starch, bagasse; eggshell derived nano calcium carbonate. Coupling agents like Baker’s yeast as an alternate of TESPT. Process aids from non-petroleum-based origin like soybean oil, orange oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, neem oil, etc. are also under the different stages of research for application in the tire. Apart from that, many resins from natural source are used to replace petroleum-based process oil and also to enhance tire performance. Cellulose-based synthetic fibers are of profound interest to replace synthetic fiber in tire reinforcement. Researchers are working to get anti-oxidant from flowers, fruits peels, and food wastes to replace petro-based antioxidants. Tea polyphenols as anti-oxidant has already found potential for the rubber compound. Investigations are also being done for a single compounding ingredient which would possess several functions and thus the term surfactant-accelerator-processing aid (SAPA) or termed as multi-functional additives (MFA).