South Korea’s Hankook Tire has entered into a memorandum of understanding with Finland’s Rotoboost to co-develop a new class of low-carbon carbon materials for tyres, to cut emissions across its supply chain.
The joint development involves carbon materials derived from so-called turquoise hydrogen, a process in which methane is thermally decomposed to produce hydrogen and solid carbon with significantly lower CO2 output than conventional production methods.
Hankook said the collaboration marks a further step towards its “2050 Net-Zero” target, with a specific focus on the raw-materials stage, where carbon black — a fossil-fuel-based input widely used in tyre manufacturing — is associated with high emissions. The company has been expanding research into recycled and certified forms of carbon black but sees the hydrogen-derived alternative as a promising next stage.
Turquoise-hydrogen carbon materials, generated during the decomposition of methane in a high-temperature reactor, have recently drawn interest in the automotive and tyre sectors for their potential to reduce lifecycle emissions. Hankook aims to optimise the material’s properties, validate its performance in tyre compounds and achieve more than a 50% reduction in greenhouse-gas intensity “without compromising product performance”.
The group will also develop a quantitative verification system, using Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Product Declarations, to assess carbon-reduction effects from raw-material sourcing through to production.
Hankook has also joined a national research programme on large-scale turquoise hydrogen production and began a development initiative with Solvay Silica to produce circular silica using industrial waste streams. Last year it achieved mass-production use of three ISCC PLUS-certified carbon blacks made from end-of-life tyre pyrolysis oil, and commercialised Korea’s first chemically recycled PET tyre cord through a partnership with SK Chemicals and Hyosung Advanced Materials.