Pirelli to launch car tires with lignin reinforcing filler

Nuremberg, Germany – Pirelli is to introduce passenger motor vehicle tires incorporating wooden-derived lignin fillers produced by using an progressive method engineering later on this 12 months.

The industrial process has been optimised for “scale-up and utilisation in car or truck tire products,” Luciano Tadielli, ground breaking elements researcher, Pirelli Tyre SpA, stated at the DKT IRC convention.

Using novel chemcial cure and co-precipitation techniques, Pirelli’s improvement follows years of R&D to overcome the troubles of correctly mixing lignin into rubber compounds.

“You will come across the lignin filler in the tire from the end of this yr,”  Tadielli explained to ERJ in an interview following a 28 June presentation* about the technology at the Nuremberg Messe.

As a bio-based mostly content, lignin – a by-merchandise of the paper pulping process in the paper industry – gives a sustainable alternate to carbon black as a reinforcing filler in tires and rubber goods.

Pirelli will start out with a person software in 1 tire sizing, as the lignin-dependent compounds for each and every application can be very various, in accordance to the Milan-based mostly researcher.

“It is not like [adding] a new quality of carbon black, which is by now a norm and can be swapped in a single-to-1 in diverse tire compounds,” he discussed.

Tadielli went on to say that the tire compound being developed will have a lignin filler content of around 15{e3fa8c93bbc40c5a69d9feca38dfe7b99f2900dad9038a568cd0f4101441c3f9}, which indicates substituting 50 {e3fa8c93bbc40c5a69d9feca38dfe7b99f2900dad9038a568cd0f4101441c3f9} of the carbon black.

And, while Pirelli is incredibly significantly OE-oriented, he indicated that its 1st lignin-filled tire would probable be for the replacement segment, “to see what comes about from a current market point-of-look at.”

Automotive OEs, stated the elements scientist, are currently focused on the incorporation of renewables from the standpoint of the entire automobile.

“So, if they want to make an action only about recyclable components… then lignin is off the table since it is not in that location.

But, Tadielli concluded, if they talk to for sustainable, bio-sourced supplies, then right here we are.”

*The DKT presentation was sent jointly with co-presenter Francesco Romani, revolutionary products and compounding supervisor, Pirelli Tyres GmbH. We will report even further on this development in European Rubber Journal magazine.