As part of its plans to industrialise the cultivation and processing of the dandelion rubber, Taraxagum, Continental is planning to invest EUR35 million in the “Taraxagum Lab Anklam” research facility located in Anklam, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany.
This project is in collaboration with the IME Fraunhofer Institute, Münster, the Julius Kühn Institute, Quedlinburg, and the ESKUSA plant breeding experts, Parkstetten. This will create around 20 new jobs in the city in the north east of Germany, which has a population of around 12,700.
“The construction of the Taraxagum Lab Anklam is part of the consistent implementation of our long-term growth strategy, ‘Vision 2025’, which involves huge investments in our manufacturing and research capacities”, said Burkhardt Köller, Chairman of the Management Board of Continental Reifen Deutschland GmbH and head of Controlling in the Tyre division at Continental, during the project presentation. “In the last five years, we have invested more than €3 billion in building new plants and expanding the capacity of our existing plants worldwide. What’s more, our unique Automated Indoor Braking Analyzer (AIBA) at our Contidrom proving ground and the High Performance Technology Centre (HPTC) in Korbach, which opened in June, are demonstrating the continuous further intensification of our technological focus.”
“With the new research facility in Anklam we want to show that we are also adopting innovative and sustainable approaches in the field of raw materials. After careful consideration, we chose Anklam as the location for our new facility based on the conditions and opportunities it offered and we would like to thank the people of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as well as Anklam’s Regional-Investment Corporation for their professional support.”
“With the Taraxagum Lab Anklam we have now reached a milestone in the ‘Taraxagum – tyres from dandelion rubber’ project”, explains Dr. Andreas Topp, head of material and process development as well as industrialisation for Tyres at Continental. “This exciting project has already developed at a promising rate. A small series of Taraxagum test tyres with tread made from pure dandelion rubber was tested against conventional tyres made from natural rubber from the hevea brasiliensis rubber tree and the results were extremely positive. Now, we want to drive forward the economical production of Taraxagum, and with the new research facility in Anklam we are laying the foundations for this.”
The Taraxagum project began around five years ago when they cultivated Russian dandelion in such a way that it could be produced in greater quantities than the traditional rubber trees from the tropics. New process and production methods were also developed in order to produce the natural rubber used in the production of tyres and other rubber products from the latex sap of the plant roots.
In the first experiments, Continental produced passenger car winter tyres and engine mounts from the “Taraxagum” rubber. The plants can also be cultivated in Northern and Western Europe, which makes transportation routes to the European production sites much shorter and contributes to the sustainable and socially viable use of existing resources.
The institutes and companies involved in the project have already received internationally recognised prizes and awards for the advances they have made. In 2014, for example, the project received the “Green Tec Award”, and in 2015 it was awarded the Joseph von Fraunhofer prize from the Fraunhofer Society.