Goodyear unveils tire made of 90 percent sustainable material

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Akron, Ohio, has unveiled a demonstration tire comprised of 90 percent sustainable materials.

Along with passing regulatory and internal testing, the tire has lower rolling resistance when compared with the reference tire made with traditional materials. The company says lower rolling resistance means this demonstration tire has the potential to offer better fuel savings and carbon footprint reduction.

Additionally, after announcing the capability to demonstrate a 70 percent sustainable-material tire in January of 2022, Goodyear plans to work with its supply base to sell a tire with up to 70 percent sustainable content in 2023.

Goodyear says bringing a 90-percent-sustainable-material tire to market will require further collaboration with the company’s supply base to identify the scale necessary for the materials to produce that specific tire at high volumes.

“We continue to make progress toward our goal of introducing the first 100-percent-sustainable-material tire in the industry by 2030,” Goodyear Senior Vice President of Global Operations and Chief Technology Officer Chris Helsel says. “The past year was a pivotal one toward achieving this goal. We researched new technologies, identified opportunities for further collaboration and utilized our team’s tenacity to not only demonstrate our capabilities to produce a 90 percent sustainable-material tire, but to also produce a tire with up to 70 percent sustainable-material content this year. Our team continues to showcase its innovation and commitment to building a better future.”

The company says its 90-percent-sustainable-material demonstration tire includes 17 featured ingredients across 12 different components:

• four different types of carbon black that are produced from methane, carbon dioxide, plant-based oil and end-of-life tire pyrolysis oil feedstocks;
• soybean oil that helps keep the tire’s rubber compound pliable in changing temperatures and reduces Goodyear’s use of petroleum-based products;
• silica produced from rice husk waste residue (RHA silica), a byproduct of rice processing that is often sent to landfills that can be used in tires to help improve grip and reduce fuel consumption;
• polyester that was chemically recycled from postconsumer bottles by reverting the polyester into base chemicals and reforming them into technical grade polyester used in tire cords;
• bio-renewable pine tree resins to help improve and enhance tire traction performance;
• bead wire and steel cord from steel with high-recycled content, which provide reinforcement in the structure of a radial tire and are produced using the electric arc furnace (EAF) process;
• and ISCC-certified mass balance polymers from bio- and bio-circular feedstock.