Bridgestone Corp. : and Ajinomoto Co., Inc. Jointly Developing Synthetic Rubber from Biomass

4-traders.com
05/31/2012
03:44am

Bridgestone Corp. and Ajinomoto Co., Inc. Jointly Developing Synthetic Rubber from Biomass
The Goal is to Develop Tires with 100 % Sustainable Materials

TOKYO (May 31, 2012) - Bridgestone Corporation today announced that it has successfully polymerized*1 high-cis polyisoprene (IR*2) synthetic rubber from isoprene*3 provided by Ajinomoto Co, Inc., a partner in synthetic rubber development for tires. Isoprene is produced with biomass.

Demand for tires is expected to increase in tandem with rising car ownership worldwide, and the Bridgestone Group is committed to promoting the development of technologies and business models that contribute to greater use of recyclable and renewable resources in order to build a sustainable society.

The Bridgestone Group is promoting a variety of initiatives for creating "100% sustainable materials*4" by 2050, but IR extracted from crude oil feedstock is a market with limited potential for supply. The Group has been searching for ways to procure raw materials from renewable resources to ensure the supply of sustainable resources. Polymerized IR has been successfully polymerized at this time using isoprene produced with biomass by Ajinomoto, which has the world's most advanced fermentation technologies. This development could be a major catalyst for achieving the Group's goal of a sustainable society. In addition, IR bonded with isoprene from biomass feedback using the Group's proprietary polymerization catalyst*5 technologies can verify the practical feasibility of IR.

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Cleaner, Greener Synthetic Rubber Tires Start to Roll

Industry.Bnet.com
By Adam Fisher Mar 25, 2010

Tires are made from oil. Nearly seven gallons of oil per tire, which adds up: 290 million tires are thrown away every year, meaning that tires account for about 50 million barrels of oil per year in the US alone. But what if rubber could be made from grass, or corn, or cane, or whatever biomass that happens to be lying around? If so tires would then be a carbon sink, and thus more tires would mean… drum roll… less global warming!

It’s not such a crazy idea, as it turns out. It was not so long ago ago that tires were made from from the sap of rubber trees, after all. (And actually, they still are, in part.) World War II and the Japanese conquest of the rubber plantations of Asia prompted the Allies to figure out how to make synthetic rubber. The key molecule in rubber, both the synthetic and natural varieties, is called isoprene. The Allies, under pressure, figured out how to make it by “cracking” oil and tar in a refinery. So, faced with rising carbon in our atmosphere and dwindling supplies of oil in the ground, why not go the other direction? Why not extract isoprene from biomass instead of relying on a couple eons of geologic time turns it into crude? That way we could make a natural synthetic rubber.

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Tires to match your cellulosic ethanol?

CNet News: GreenTech
August 6, 2009 7:00 AM PDT
by Candace Lombardi

I'm sure you've heard of a rubber tree plant, but have you also heard about the new rubber tree tire?

Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) have developed a tire made from plant materials combined with rubber that offers several benefits over conventionally manufactured tires.

The rubber composite contains microcrystalline cellulose as an additive, a material that can be made from a wide variety of plant materials, instead of the usual carbon black or silica typically used.

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