Day One Opening Session - Challenges and Opportunities
Given its unique position as critical link between vehicle and infrastructure, the tyre industry is well positioned to help the automotive value chain as well as policy makers meet safety, sustainability and autonomous driving challenges.
The tyre of the future will be round, probably black and more than likely pneumatic. Beyond that, the variables in play—new materials, new manufacturing methods, changing vehicle designs and needs, electrification, autonomous driving, circular economy, etc.— lead to an evolving spider web of tyre parameters that put all features, except round, into play.
One of the pillars that Bridgestone has identified as central to its sustainability strategy "Our Way to Serve" is mobility.
The world around us and our industry is evolving at a rapid pace. To drive a sustainable end-to end process, we need to a relentless focus on all aspects of the tyre; from materials sourced, to the production process, fuel efficiency and ultimately, the end-of tyre life.
As the future of our vehicles is CASE (connected, autonomous, shared and electrified), how can new and existing technologies ensure tyres that last longer, use less or sustainable materials, and provide continued and cleaner mobility and efficiencies to fleets and consumers?Mr. de Valroger will dive into these topics with concrete examples from Bridgestone’s innovation pipeline.
With greater significance and emphasis on the pursuit of environmental and resource sustainability from governments, commercial organisations and consumers across all industries, Smithers Rapra conducted a market research programme with the aim of identifying and analysing the key drivers, trends, technologies and challenges facing the tire industry in becoming more sustainable. The study reviews issues such as sustainable materials supply, recycling trends such as retreading, processing and end-of-life recovery and waste reduction and how the circular economy is being applied to the tire industry specifically.
The Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) was formed in March 2019 to identify sustainable rubber sources and find new approaches to the sustainable natural rubber supply chain. The platform, initiated by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the group includes automakers, rubber producers, tire companies and civil service organizations. Learn more about this group's goals and plans and how it will affect the tire industry in the future.
Tyre recycling is increasingly a critical industry, it is one that is being developed in every country in the world. It may or may not be seen as part of the tyre manufacturing industry, and where its future lies depends upon many different factors levering on the direction.
There is growing tyre manufacturer interest in tyre recycling, and as that develops, that very interest may control, or, at least, limit the directions in which tyre recycling might take. Other influencers on direction are public perception and acceptance, both of recycled tyre rubber end products, and of new tyres manufactured with recycled materials.
The tyre recycling sector has become incredibly dynamic, with tyre industry turnarounds on recycled materials changing the background of recycling and where the markets lie. There may be a move away from moulded granulated products to more technical applications that lead to reincorporation in high performance tyre products. That creation of demand from the tyre industry may well change the future of tyre recycling dramatically.
Day One Afternoon Session - Material Matters
Chair: Wilma Denkes, Associate Professor, University of Twente
With its focus on functionalized SSBR, Trinseo’s key contribution to the Tire Life Cycle is throughout its use-phase by substantially saving greenhouse gas emissions. However, sole focus on performance will not be enough anymore to embrace the future, given the direction the automotive value chain is heading and the sustainability targets voiced by key tire companies. Trinseo presents how it responds to the various challenges, demonstrating initiatives where it is already active to enable recycle tire content as well as outlining what framework is needed in order to truly build a circular economy for tires.
Sustainability is one of the fundamental aspects of material and compound development. Having its tires developed, tested and produced in Europe and being a member of ETRMA since 2009, Hankook considers sustainability as a key mission in its entire logistics, material and production workflow.
Since rubber is a limited natural resource, one key sustainability issue for a premium tire maker is material compounding; meaning – redesigning new rubber mixtures that provide the tire with the best levels of performance and eco-compatibility. Massimo Cialone, Senior Compound Specialist at Hankook European Technical Center is presenting recent approaches and developments in the field of green tire industry and 4.0. compounding. Among other topics, he explains the major task from the development and chemical perspective to create a tire that consists entirely of recycled, recyclable or natural materials– respecting fully the criteria of REACH as introduced by the European Commission. Furthermore, he gives insight into new polymer and filler structures and shows how new chemical fillers can lead to minimum energy loss.
The advent of mobility initiatives in the automotive industry have had a corresponding effect on tire production and advanced material development. Arancha Guisuraga of ExxonChemical will explore the emergence of new vehicles and the impact on tire materials.
The motivations, approaches, technologies and tire recycling rates in the regions of the world are very different. What is shared is the high complexity from feedstock collection up to the value adding marketing of tire recycling products. Best practices will be shared and opportunities for growth of tire recycling industries with all three tire recycling processes will be sketched.
The Silica/Silane system is well known to the European market of passenger car tire tread compounds, but the market access worldwide is still below 50 %. This might be a consequence of missing legal labels, but also technical requirements that are different around the world. By entering the US market with an own dedicated tire silica plant in 2018, EVONIK developed a silica that has proven to be more dedicated to different US tire manufactures demands.
Day Two Opening Session - Making a Big Difference
Chair: Jacob Peled, Executive Chairman, Pelmar Engineering Group, Ltd
Natural rubber will become of critical need in the automotive industry. Hear from a leading tire producer how responsible tire sourcing is governed through the chain, from multi-stakeholder dialogue to local implementation of sound roadmaps.
Tires are very sophisticated high-quality products and constantly improved in terms of efficiency, safety and environmental impact. Unfortunately, to date, tires have not been designed for recycling and material reuse. Rubber is a very durable material, and this hampers the re-processing and re-use of rubber. Nonetheless, there is a variety of recycled rubber products on the market: granulate, powder, reclaim and devulcanizate. However, the fact that tires are built from different types of compounds containing different polymers and fillers limits the quality of the recycled material. Dr. WIlma Dierkes of the University of Twente will present a study on this issue and ways to overcome some of the drawbacks.
Future sustainable tire factories will manufacture tires economically and efficiently, while protecting employees and consumers and minimizing negative environmental impacts. How can automation help tire makers? Cimcorp’s Dream Factory solution is based on lean methodology, which minimizes waiting times, reduces inventory (WIP) and ensures maximum availability of components at process machines. Automation enables higher capacity with less equipment and smaller investment.
Energy consumption can also be reduced by choosing eco-friendly handling equipment.
Industry 4.0 and IIoT bring new opportunities for proactive maintenance and reductions in defects/scrap.
Automation is also about people. Work is eased and safety enhanced by transferring strenuous or even dangerous tasks over to machinery.
The recycling of tyres is seen as a great success in comparison with the recycling rates of other industries. However, only a small amount of tyres is truly recycled, as opposed to downcycled, and material recycling of tyre rubber could play a much more significant role in the treatment of end of life tyres. More materials-focussed recycling could decrease the environmental footprint of tyres throughout the life cycle. This paper explores the barriers to material recycling of tyres and problems that hinder further recycling. Two of the key issues in creating a true circular economy for tyre rubber are to understand the materials science and to guarantee the quality of the product. This paper speaks to both aspects. It discusses the physics of incorporating rubber powder into new rubber compounds and looks at biological, chemical and physical treatments to the rubber powder to improve the circularity of its use.
Kordsa and Continental have co-developed an environmentally friendly adhesion system for bonding textile reinforcement materials to rubber based compounds without resorcinol or formaldehyde. The development is motivated by the companies' commitment to sustainability and to define a new standard for the tire industry. A pioneering approach for the tire industry has been taken to reach this goal: the companies are sharing their adhesion technology via a royalty-free licensing concept. This concept includes an open source strategy which enables all interested parties to further develop the initial technology and provides the opportunity to combine the know-how of the licensing pool members for the benefit of all. During the presentation, Thomas Kramer of Continental and Burak Ilgun of Kordsa will share updates on the latest developments and responses received from the industry.
Day Two Afternoon Session: The Way Forward
Future Tire will culminate with this extended discussion platform, which will draw on conclusions from the discussions and debate over the two-day conference. With active participation from delegates, the top-level panel – representing a broad range of stakeholders – will map the way forward and forecast what lies ahead for the sustainable tire industry of the future.
More to follow as we confirm details for the full panel line-up for this important discussion.