CLEVELAND, Ohio – A primary ingredient in tires is butadiene, a chemical compound derived from fossil fuels.
But if Bridgestone Americas is successful with a pilot project, the company will make butadiene from ethanol, which not only is produced from corn in the United States, but also from sugar cane in Brazil.
The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded the company a $9.28 million grant to build and operate the pilot plant. It will be located at Bridgestone’s research and development facility in Akron, on the site of what was the first operating synthetic tire-rubber plant in the United States, according to Mark Smale, Bridgestone Executive Director of Core Polymer Science.
The industry has known how to make butadiene from ethanol for 80 years, Smale said, but the challenge is doing it economically. The plan is to know within three years whether butadiene made from ethanol is commercially viable for use in tires and what affect it has on the company’s carbon footprint.
The average tire is about half rubber, Smale said, and that rubber is split evenly between natural fiber and synthetic fiber. About 80% of the synthetic rubber is composed of butadiene.
The pilot plant will use a “catalyst system” first developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to convert the ethanol to butadiene.
“The goal of this project is to assess, and hopefully prove, the economic viability of deriving butadiene from ethanol conversion versus fossil fuel conversion,” according to Bridgestone. “If the economics prove viable, then low carbon intensity ethanol (or ethanol derived from bio-based or recycled materials) could replace the use of fossil fuels in the process to obtain butadiene.”
Butadiene is used in other products, such as plastic for durable goods, including Lego blocks, Smale said.
Bridgestone’s goal is to achieve an 85% reduction in the carbon footprint of its production of butadiene, which is a byproduct of the refining of ethylene from oil and natural gas.
The company has a commitment to use all sustainable materials in the production of its tires by 2050. Among its projects is the development of natural rubber from a desert shrub called guayule.
Peter Krouse writes about the environment for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. He can be reached at [email protected].