Smart mobility - tires and microplastics, should we reinvent the wheel

again?
Michal Sura michsoora@gmail.com

Transport accounts for around one-fifth of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and
we are trying to rise amount of electric and H2 vehicles to reduce emissions produced
by the transport sector. But there is another serious and very surprising environmental
problem from road traffic - microplastics released from car tires and brake systems.
Microplastics are generated by the abrasion of tire against a road surface and by car
braking systems during a braking when friction is applied. The problem with
microplastics will be even worse with the gradual transition to electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles due to their battery pack are heavier than internal combustion engine
cars. That means they more wear their tyres and brakes.

A recent study revealed that there are released 100 000 tonnes microplastics
through the wear of tires and brake systems and another 40 000 tonnes comes from
brake systems (1). These microplastics are transported trough air and dumped into our
rivers and oceans. Microplastics are ingested by fish, mussels, oysters and scallops,
etc. They are caught and consumed by people and scientists are trying to determine
what means consuming microplastic-contaminated seafood for human health.
There are several definitions of microplastics. “Microplastics” is a term commonly used
to describe extremely small pieces of plastic debris in the environment resulting from
the disposal and breakdown of products and waste materials. In case of transport sector
microplastics mainly consists of tire wear, brake wear and road wear.
European Chemical Agency (ECHA) - the agency of the European Union proposes
following definition:
Microplastics are solid-polymer containing particles, to which additives or other
substances may have been added, and where ≥ 1% w/w of particles have (i) all
dimensions 1nm ≤ x ≤ 5mm, or (ii), for fibres, a length of 3nm ≤ x ≤ 15mm and length to
diameter ratio of >3. (2)
A typical passenger car tire consists approximately of:
Synthetic rubber 24%
Natural rubber 19%
Fillers (carbon black, silica, carbon, chalk…) 26%
Antioxidants, antiozonants, curing systems 14%
Steel 12%
Textile 4% (3)

As we can see modern rubber tires are not “rubber” anymore, but they are made from a
blend of mostly synthetic plastic materials and chemicals. The natural rubber is a minor
component (approx. 15-30%) in a modern tire and it is composed of as many as 200 different
materials, it is a mix of synthetic compounds, fillers, plasticisers, binders and other chemical
additives to add a strength, UV resistance, waterproofness, etc.
The exact composition is a secret kept by tire manufacturers. There is one very
important ingredient which is added to tires is carbon black. It’s a dark sooty material produced
by combusting oil or gas with oxygen inside large furnaces and is used to increase tyre strength
and UV light resistance. Carbon black as not biodegradable and it is classified by the
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a Group 2B carcinogen (possibly
carcinogenic to humans) (4). Car tires are a major global waste problem, there are 1.5 billion
used tires disposed worldwide every year (5)
Some 90% of production of natural rubber today comes from Havea plantations in
southeast Asia. Havea tree plantations displaced a lot of typical tropical forests there. Havea
rubber trees are very vulnerable to a fungal diseases, so the tire industry does not want to
dependent on a single crop that is grown in a single geographical Asian region. The tire industry
is looking for an diversifying sources of a natural rubber from commercial and environmental
reasons.
 In 1930’s in a time of USSR, Soviet scientists were looking for a natural source of
rubber that would help to their country become self-sufficient in case of a natural rubber
production. They tested over several hundred different species that from various areas
of former USSR to find an alternative to the rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensi. Finally they
found one there on the steppes of Kazakhstan, it was Taraxacum koksaghyz called also
the Russian dandelion. During WWII the Russian dandelion - Taraxacum koksaghyz,
supplied 30% of the USSR's rubber. But after war Soviets switched back to using Hevea
tree rubber because it was cheaper.

But in recent years, there was started projects here Europe and there is USA
have to making dandelion rubber commercially viable again. Among them is
Taraxagum, a collaboration between Continental Tires and the Fraunhofer Institute of
Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology in Aachen, Germany. "Continental Tires tested
the performance of the material and said that it was brilliant — in some cases better
than Hevea rubber," said Dirk Prüfer, a plant biotechnologist on the Taraxagum team.
 European union funded DRIVE4EU consortium, it was a project that ran from
2014 to 2018 and they tried to develop the entire production chain for Russian
dandelion rubber, because unlike the Havea rubber tree, the Russian dandelion is
suitable for planting here in European temperate climates. The Russian dandelion is
possible to grown on relatively poor soils, it doesn't compete with other agriculture
product at all.
But even if we managed to grow Russian dandelion in bulk, we would still not
solve the problem with tires. "Tires are meant to optimize different kinds of properties,
so it's not easy to just use one kind of rubber," said Francesco Piccihoni, an expert in
rubber recycling at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. "You could make
tires from only natural rubber but it degrades faster, meaning you would have to change
the tires much more often," Piccihoni added (6). This means that it will be still necessary
to add some additives to tires made of natural rubber to make them more durable, let's
hope that tire manufacturers will be able to develop additives that are environmentally
friendly and biodegradable.
NASA research engineers have unveiled super-elastic titanium spring tires that
will help rovers designed for extraterrestrial surfaces to carry heavier payloads and
explore larger areas for longer periods of time (7). The metal spring tire made from a
special nickel-titanium shape memory alloy. We will see if this new technology would be
used once for producing tires suitable for using on Earth.

As we can see, it is not easy to find the better and cheaper alternative to the rubber tire at all.
But we have to reduce creation of microplastics generated by a transport somehow. A
team of student designers in UK designed a simple device that collects microplastics as they fly
off a car tire (8).
 A situation with microplastics pollution is likely to get worse as electric cars
become more common, tires on a new heavy electric car will wear down much faster.
That is why is necessary to put pressure on the car makers let they produce more
lightweight electric vehicles.
But we do think that the best solution for dealing with microplastics is to move as
much of the freight and passenger transport to the railways as possible. The railroad
wheels are usually made from steel and there are not generated any microplastics by
the abrasion of a railroad wheel against a rail. In this way, we would be able to
significantly reduce the amount of microplastics generated by transport.

1, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17201-9
2, https://echa.europa.eu/documents/10162/b949137e-57a6-dde0-9f62-7ad0f58b123b
3, https://www.ustires.org/whats-tire-0
4, https://tinyurl.com/4yek6jxu
5,https://earthbound.report/2017/06/29/what-can-the-world-do-with-1-5-billion-waste-tyr
es/
6,https://www.dw.com/en/could-rubber-from-dandelions-make-tires-more-sustainable/a-
56766389
7, https://www.industrytap.com/nasas-titanium-spring-tires-nearly-indestructible/45807
8,https://www.ecowatch.com/microplastics-car-tires-james-dyson-award--2647697441.h
tml