Tomorrow鈥檚 tires could come from the farm as much as the factory. Researchers at The Ohio State University have discovered that food waste can partially replace the petroleum-based filler that has been used in manufacturing tires for more than a century. In tests, rubber made with the new fillers exceeds industrial standards for performance, which may ultimately open up new applications for rubber.
As聽Katrina Cornish explains it, the technology has the potential to solve three problems: It makes the manufacture of rubber products more sustainable, reduces American dependence on foreign oil and keeps waste out of landfills.
Cornish, an Ohio Research Scholar and Endowed Chair in Biomaterials at Ohio State, has spent years cultivating new domestic rubber sources, including a聽rubber-producing dandelion. Now she has a patent-pending method for turning eggshells and tomato peels into viable鈥攁nd locally sourced鈥攔eplacements for聽carbon black, a petroleum-based filler that American companies often purchase from overseas.
About 30 percent of a typical automobile tire is carbon black; it鈥檚 the reason tires appear black. It makes the rubber durable, and its cost varies with petroleum prices. Carbon black is getting harder to come by, Cornish said. 鈥淭he tire industry is growing very quickly, and we don鈥檛 just need more natural rubber, we need more filler, too,鈥� she explained. 鈥淭he number of tires being produced worldwide is going up all the time, so countries are using all the carbon black they can make. There鈥檚 no longer a surplus, so we can鈥檛 just buy some from Russia to make up the difference like we used to. 鈥淎t the same time,鈥� she added, 鈥渨e need to have more sustainability.鈥�
That鈥檚 why she and her team are getting eggshells and other food waste from Ohio food producers.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not suggesting that we collect the eggshells from your breakfast,鈥� Cornish said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going right to the biggest source.鈥�
According to the USDA, Americans consume nearly聽100 billion eggs each year. Half are cracked open in commercial food factories, which pay to have the shells hauled to landfills by the ton. There, the mineral-packed shells don鈥檛 break down.
The second most popular vegetable in the United States鈥攖he tomato鈥攁lso provides a source of filler, the researchers found. Americans eat聽13 million tons of tomatoes per year, most of them canned or otherwise processed.
Commercial tomatoes have been bred to grow thick, fibrous skins so that they can survive being packed and transported long distances. When food companies want to make a product such as tomato sauce, they peel and discard the skin, which isn鈥檛 easily digestible.
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