Biomass Research and Development Initiative
(BRDI) team meets all grant goals; Cooper produces and road tests
concept passenger tires in which all natural and synthetic rubber
is replaced with guayule rubber
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company and its consortium partners,
including Clemson University, Cornell University, PanAridus and the
Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA-ARS), today announced the completion of a five-year, $6.9
million Biomass Research and Development Initiative (BRDI) grant,
“Securing the Future of Natural Rubber—an American Tire and
Bioenergy Platform from Guayule.” A report on the grant was
recently presented at the public-private sector consortium’s
wrap-up meeting held at the Cooper Tire & Vehicle Test Center
near San Antonio.
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Cooper Tire & Rubber Company, working
as the lead entity in a public-private sector consortium to study
the guayule polymer for tire applications, produced concept
passenger car tires in which all the natural and synthetic rubber
is replaced by guayule natural rubber. (Photo: Business Wire)
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company, working as the lead entity in
the consortium, announced at the meeting that its scientists
produced several sets of concept passenger car tires in which all
the natural and synthetic rubber is replaced by guayule natural
rubber. Guayule, a shrub grown primarily in the southwestern United
States, contains rubber that can be processed for use in tires. The
grant team studied the feasibility of using guayule in tires versus
Hevea natural rubber, which is used by the industry today and is
sourced primarily from Southeast Asia.
The 100-percent guayule-based concept tires underwent extensive
evaluation by Cooper’s technical team, including rigorous wheel and
road tests, and were found to have overall performance at least
equal to tires made with Hevea and synthetic rubber. Notably, the
tires performed significantly better in rolling resistance, wet
handling and wet braking than their conventional counterparts.
Following the meeting, consortium members participated in the
industry’s first ride and drive on the 100 percent guayule concept
tires at the Cooper facility.
“Cooper built more than 450 tires, replacing various tire
components made with Hevea and synthetic rubber with those made
with guayule and testing each for overall performance. With
knowledge gathered from these builds, we created the industry’s
first all-guayule concept tires and with them conducted rigorous
lab and road tests that provide verifiable performance results,”
said Chuck Yurkovich, Cooper’s Senior Vice President of Global
Research & Development. “Based on our findings, Cooper could
use guayule rubber in tire production tomorrow if enough material
was available to meet our production needs at a competitive price.
To make this happen, the combined effort of government, agriculture
and industry is needed to grow the plants and create large-scale
manufacturing operations to produce the rubber for use in the tire
industry,” he added.
Consortium member Clemson University reported the completion of
a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) to quantify the environmental impact of
producing tires from guayule including materials, energy and
emissions from raw material procurement to end of life.
“Through our LCA, we found that the 100 percent guayule-based
concept tire had between 6 to 30 percent lower emissions in 10
different life cycle environmental and energy impact categories
compared with a conventional tire,” said Amy Landis, Ph.D., Thomas
F. Hash ’69 Endowed Chair and Professor, Glenn Department of Civil
Engineering, Clemson University. “This model can also be used in
the future to continue to quantify the environmental impacts of
guayule for tire commercialization as it is impacted by factors
such as agricultural yield and farming efficiency, the
identification and use of coproducts, and improved guayule-tire
rolling resistance.”
In addition, USDA-ARS, which earlier in the BRDI grant cycle
completed the most extensive irrigation study of guayule ever
conducted, reported the completion of a web-based tool for farmers
to access an irrigation model online. The model will allow those
growing the guayule plant to utilize research data to manage
irrigation water usage for maximizing yields while controlling
costs.
“Guayule is cultivated in semi-arid regions, so sustainable use
of irrigation water resources is paramount,” said Colleen McMahan,
Ph.D., Research Chemist, ARS, Western Regional Research Laboratory.
“This study clearly showed large productivity improvements when
sub-surface drip irrigation was used versus surface irrigation,
which may help justify investment in more water-efficient systems
for guayule agriculture.”
ARS also reported on its work under the grant to sequence the
guayule genome. This effort was geared to position the crop to
benefit from modern genomics tools developed by the Cornell
University consortium partners.
“The genomics efforts at Cornell, which include the most
detailed genetic characterization of the entire publicly available
guayule collection to date, lay the foundation for
genomics-assisted breeding of the plant to accelerate improvements
in terms of yield, resistance to disease and pests, cold tolerance
and other factors,” said Michael Gore, Ph.D., Liberty Hyde Bailey
Professor and Associate Professor, Plant Breeding and Genetics
Section, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University.
“The ARS and Cornell consortium partners ensured the genomics tools
and information are publicly available in order to facilitate the
rapid development of the guayule plant as a viable crop.”
Other significant accomplishments over the five-year grant cycle
included:
- PanAridus, the project’s raw material
supplier, achieved success in manufacturing rubber using improved
strains of guayule, producing rubber in quantities never before
achieved for use in modern tires. Cooper and PanAridus also
improved the rubber extraction process from guayule plants.
- USDA-ARS pioneered direct seeding
methods and agronomics.
- Cooper, PanAridus and USDA-ARS worked
closely to identify key variables impacting rubber quality.
Controlling these factors during the rubber manufacturing process
resulted in compounds with properties that are similar to Hevea
natural rubber.
- USDA-ARS completed an irrigation study
of guayule that compared surface irrigation and subsurface drip
irrigation to determine the most effective method to drive higher
rubber yield per acre. The study found that drip irrigation
provided an enormous benefit over other irrigation techniques and
led to improved yields.
“The results of this grant have been groundbreaking,” Yurkovich
added. “Never before has it been proven that guayule is a viable
source of domestically produced natural rubber for the tire
industry. However, through the combined effort of industry,
government and academia, the BRDI team has unequivocally
demonstrated just that.”
About the BRDI Grant
The consortium received the five-year BRDI grant in 2012 from
the USDA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to conduct
research aimed at developing enhanced manufacturing processes for
the production of solid rubber from the guayule plant as a
biomaterial for tire applications, as well as evaluating the
plant’s residual biomass for potential fuel applications. The
consortium aimed to harness the biopolymers extracted from guayule
as a replacement for synthetic rubbers and Hevea natural rubber
used in the production of tires. It also focused on the genomic and
agronomic development of guayule and the sustainability impact
these biomaterial and bioenergy industries have on the American
southwest, where guayule is grown. The grant period ended in the
second quarter of 2017 with consortium members delivering on all
aspects of the grant.
About Cooper Tire & Rubber Company
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company (NYSE: CTB) is the parent
company of a global family of companies that specializes in the
design, manufacture, marketing and sale of passenger car, light
truck, medium truck, motorcycle and racing tires. Cooper’s
headquarters is in Findlay, Ohio, with manufacturing, sales,
distribution, technical and design operations within its family of
companies located in more than one dozen countries around the
world. For more information on Cooper, visit www.coopertire.com,
www.facebook.com/coopertire or www.twitter.com/coopertire.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170810005664/en/
Cooper Tire & Rubber CompanyAnne Roman,
419-429-7189alroman@coopertire.com
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