Jay
Known Member
There’s new development that’s just been found by The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, which effectively reduces the dependence on petroleum-based oil by helping them save up to 7 million gallons (26,497,882.49 million litres) per annum, used to help manufacture tyres, whilst helping to extend the tread life by up to 10% – All thanks to Soybean oil!
Researchers at Goodyear’s Innovation Center conducted tests which found soybean oil to have improved mixing capabilities in the manufacturing process of tyres and these tyres were able to blend more easily with silica (silicon + oxygen = Silicon Dioxide – SiO2), which happens to be the compound that helps your tyres grip in the wet.
With such findings, Goodyear is highly geared to get their newly blended prototype tyres to their Proving Grounds in San Angelo, Texas within the next few months with high hopes. And if all goes well, these new tyres will soon be on the market as soon as 2015.
With such promise in hand, the United Soybean Board (USB) in America has decided to help Goodyear in their research by providing them a grant of USD$500,000 over the course of two years.
As crude levels begin to diminish, Goodyear and DuPont Industrial Biosciences have teamed-up to seek out alternative solutions in order to become less dependant on Earth’s natural resources by researching into synthetic rubber – Biolsoprene, which is a bio-based alternative to petroleum-based isoprene and will help to further reduce their petroleum dependencies.
The use of soybean oil is just one of the initiatives Goodyear is currently undertaking and Goodyear and DuPont Industrial Biosciences are hard at work to develop BioIsoprene; a revolutionary bio-based alternative for petroleum-derived isoprene. BioIsoprene can be used for the production of synthetic rubber, which in turn is an alternative for natural rubber—and other elastomers, helping to further reduce the tire and rubber industry’s petroleum-derived products dependencies.
