American Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (Goodyear) is to use rice husk ash (RHA) silica as a bio-alternative to traditional sand-based silica in the manufacture of their tyres. Goodyear first started production of rice-silica tyres using silica provided by Yihai Food and Oil at its Pulandian, China, factory back in 2015.
Silica is usually mixed with rubber in tyre treads to increase the rubber’s strength and reduce rolling resistance. The use of RHA silica will then provide Goodyear with an environmentally-friendly source of silica and even reduce the amount of rice husk waste being landfilled.
The China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC), who conducted a thorough analysis last year to determine the climate impacts of RHA silica, found that more CO2 is sequestered from the atmosphere than is generated during the RHA silica production process.
As such, Goodyear is set to expand its efforts with RHA silica-tyres, globally: “We are working closely with our suppliers to explore further expanding the usage of RHA silica and would like to double our use of it in tyres with in the next two years.”