Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. has just wrapped up its first track demonstration of tyres made in part with rubber derived from guayule, an important step in the company’s quest to build commercially viable tyres from the desert shrub.
Guayule is native to the U.S. Southwest and Mexico and has long been known as a potential source of domestic-grown rubber alternative, though developing it has been challenging.
Cooper hasn’t yet been able to wholly replace natural rubber in tyres, but officials said they have made tyres that use 100 % guayule in a number of individual components.
“It’s a big milestone to have built these tyres with multiple guayule components, and to be able to produce enough of those to actually be able to do a ride and drive,” company spokesman Anne Roman said.
Ms. Roman said Cooper’s laboratory and track testing suggest tyres made with guayule perform at least as well as standard tyres.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Energy jointly provided a $6.9 million grant to fund Cooper’s research into guayule. Cooper is working with a number of other companies and universities on the project.
This week’s test drive came during the consortium’s annual meeting at Cooper’s test track outside of San Antonio. Ms. Roman said nearly 30 engineers and scientists were able to see for the first time what their collective work has developed. Drivers were able to test the tyres on a variety of surfaces and pavement conditions.
Though synthetic rubber is already widely used, there are some parts of the tyre that still require natural rubber, which comes exclusively from plantations in Southeast Asia.
For Cooper and others, finding a domestic substitute to that natural rubber is increasingly important as more of the world industrializes and the demand for natural rubber increases.
“It’s a big deal because it’s a domestically grown plant. It could be a U.S. industry — many years to come — but this is promising,” Ms. Roman said.
Aside from tyres, researchers are examining guayule’s potential as a biofuel. The plant can be distilled into jet fuel. Because of that versatility and the plant’s natural inclination to dry climates, there’s hope that it could become a profitable commercial crop for the U.S. Southwest in the future.