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March 26, 2010 | Motorists to drive on world's first 'green' tires within next 5 years | Washington: A revolutionary new technology that produces a key tyre ingredient from renewable feedstocks rather than petroleum-derived feedstocks will enable motorists to drive on the world's first 'green' tyres within the next five years. The technology,
described at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS),
stands to reduce the tire industry's reliance on crude oil - seven gallons of
which now go into each of the approximately one billion tyres produced each year
worldwide. The new tires will be a "sweet" advance toward greener, more sustainable
transportation in a quite literal sense, according to Joseph McAuliffe, a staff
scientist at Genencor, an industrial biotechnology company in Palo Alto , California
, who reported on the technology. The process can use sugars derived from sugar
cane, corn, corn cobs, switchgrass or other biomass to produce the ingredient,
a biochemical called isoprene, derived from renewable raw materials. "An intensive
search has been underway for years for alternative sources of isoprene, in particular
those from renewable resources such as biomass," said McAuliffe. "One technical
challenge has been the development of an efficient process for converting sugars
into isoprene," he said. "One means by which we're addressing this challenge is
by using a fermentation process based on a modified bacterial strain that is designed
to convert carbohydrate feedstocks into BioIsoprene product," he added. The Goodyear
Tyre and Rubber Co. and Genencor, a division of Danisco A/S, have established
a research collaboration to develop an integrated fermentation, recovery and purification
system for producing BioIsoprene product from renewable raw materials. Genencor
intends to commercialize the technology within the next five years. In his ACS
presentation, McAuliffe described how Genencor engineered bacteria to efficiently
convert sugars to isoprene and how the smooth integration of fermentation and
recovery processes promises to deliver a new route to this strategically important
ingredient used to make synthetic rubber. The firm plans to supplement its use
of petroleum-based isoprene with BioIsoprene product. "This is an enormous market.
BioIsoprene product will serve as a renewable and cost-competitive alternative
to isoprene," McAuliffe said. "It's a material that can drive new markets, so
I believe those numbers highlighting global consumption would grow if new material
became available," he added. "We want to make biochemicals from renewable materials,
partially as a hedge against rising crude oil prices and much more so because
this approach moves us to a more sustainable future," McAuliffe said. |
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