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I worked on a phd for 4 years looking into this problem indirectly and for a decade at Ohio State they have had working solutions to the tire dust issue but it

I worked on a phd for 4 years looking into this problem indirectly and for a decade at Ohio State they have had working solutions to the tire dust issue but it is IMPOSSIBLE to get funding. A Billion dollar industry and NO ONE cares about cleaning it up if it means increasing costs by 5% or more. It has been WELL KNOWN for 50 years! We are basically aerosolizing carbon in MASSIVE amounts right where we live and work. Almost like we are purposefully manufacturing microplastics and dumping them in the air as fast as we can. Imagine taking every new tire and just grinding it down into a fine dust then blowing in into the air and dumping it into the rivers. That is what we are doing, AS FAST AS WE CAN. (For anyone that cares, the solution is natural rubber, which costs slight more than synthetic rubber but lasts longer. So its better for consumers, cheaper all around, and 1,000x better for the environment but Goodyear, Firestone and Michelin flat out refuse to fund research or even block innovation in natural rubber. [1] https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish

paddy_m 3y ago
Can natural rubber be made as soft as synthetic rubber? What kind of rubber is used on race cars (and dirt bikes)? Cost is much less of an issue for those markets.
- bri3d 3y ago
  Natural rubber is used extensively in higher-end applications (race cars, trucks, aircraft). However, almost all tires are some hybrid of the two. Generally, natural rubber is used in the construction of the tire "carcass" and sidewalls while synthetic rubber (compounded with a gazillion and one other things) is used to construct the tread. The basic issues are pretty intuitive: * The supply of natural rubber is constrained by the ability to grow the plants which produce it. * It's hard to make synthetic rubber with polymer chains as long as those in natural rubber (isoprene), so natural rubber tends to be more pliable and stronger, while synthetic rubber (styrene) tends to sheer off into microparticles. * However, natural rubber degrades more rapidly when heated and cooled, and is more difficult to control in order to achieve a desired level of stickiness at a given temperature (which is basically what tires are aiming for). I think that OP's research would be quite interesting to learn about more, as my understanding is that tire manufacturers employ hundreds of chemists who are dedicated full-time to attempting to replicate natural rubber synthetically in an efficient way.
cush 3y ago
I wonder if there’s a conflict between companies being willing and able to produce natural rubber tires yet marketing them would also implicate themselves in knowingly destroying the environment. It’s a tough line to straddle.
chmod600 3y ago
Chemically speaking, how is natural rubber different from plastic while still having such similar properties?
- kylebenzle 3y ago
  Great question! Its super simple, it is ONLY the length of the hydrocarbon chain, a better quality natural rubber has really long chains (10,000+ atoms long) that last a LONG time and are VERY stretchy. Synthetic rubber (or plastic) is shorter (1,000 atoms long) and doesn't last as long. Thats it, it is the exact same "product" just a chain that gets longer and longer and changes its physical properties as it grows.
  - traveler01 3y ago
    Noob here, but aren’t the best tires made from natural rubber? Or am I mistaken?
  - spqr0a1 3y ago
    It's more than just the chain length. The most common synthetic rubbers are styrene-butadiene copolymers. Natural rubber is polyisoprene. While it is true that shorter chain synthetic polyisoprene is available, it is a much smaller part of the market than styrene-butadiene.
    - dpeckett 3y ago
      Does look like both natural and synthetic polyisoprene is at-least somewhat biodegradeable: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC92035/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC92035/
  - alt227 3y ago
    Genuinely interested here. If natural rubber and plastic are exactly the same thing, then why is natural rubber being advocated as a much more environmentally sound alternative? Would'nt the dust from natural rubber tyres be just as problematic as the plastic is now?
blackoil 3y ago
Would it be still cheaper if all tires are made from natural rubber. We shouldn't have old forests destroyed for rubber plantations.
- kylebenzle 3y ago
  There are two main working solutions that have ALREADY been used and proven to work since WWII. First: a fungal disease has wiped out ALL the rubber trees in south america, thats why we cant grow in it the Western hemisphere, a fungus. If we could grow it here we would and it would drop the price by A LOT. But, we already have a solution, a transgenic species that is resistant, nonsense Government regulation and moronic "public opinion" is the only thing stopping this from fixing the rubber problem overnight. Second: sounds funny, but ever break a dandelion stem in half and see the white stuff come out? That latex, PURE high quality latex. Let that latex air dry and you rubber! No refinement necessary. During WWII they supplied most of the war effort with rubber from dandelions! Yes, it works, its not efficient but progress has been made and with ANY funding at all it could easily produce enough higher quality natural rubber for ALL our need and enough to export. The ONLY problem is that companies make too much money producing low quality "disposable" tires that they will NEVER switch. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6073688/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6073688/ [2] https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish
  - pierat 3y ago
    Well you can't make things TOO good! How else would you sell more shit to the proles? We were (or at least I was) told in school that capitalism allowed our civilization to make and sell things we used to only dream about. And when I learned the truth, it was that capitalism was only concerned with how much to sell. If that meant making your products cheaper/worse/less durable on a creeping basis, then that's what the company did. Capitalism itself is subject to enshittification that affects all products and services.
  - pstuart 3y ago
    Fascinating fact about dandelions! A nice Fraunhofer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvVJL2GYRHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvVJL2GYRHY
sesuximo 3y ago
If I want to buy a good-for-the environment tire, what should I buy? I don’t care about the price unless it’s insane
- xnx 3y ago
  Keep your tires properly inflated. Go easy on the accelerator and brake pedal. You'll be doing much more than the average person.
- whaleofatw2022 3y ago
  Something with a low durometer that rides harsh. Ironically may be worse gas mileage than other tires.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Steel wheels.
- Liskni_si 3y ago
  Schwalbe :-)
clnq 3y ago
I'm curious to hear some thoughts of an expert - how much does natural rubber reduce the pollution for 100 miles driven by a tyre? Can you think of any alternative technical solutions? Can you think of any political solutions?
nerdponx 3y ago
> Goodyear, Firestone and Michelin flat out refuse to fund research or even block innovation What's in it for them? Keeping bad press about tires out of the public view? Fear of lower profit margins?
XorNot 3y ago
Why would natural rubber be better then synthetic rubber for this problem? Asbestos is natural and toxic as hell. Natural rubber currently has the property of being mostly inside trees not being ground up into a fine powder - but there's no obvious reason at scale it would be any better except in terms of "slightly less wear over time". Is it's chemistry fundamentally different?
kwhitefoot 3y ago
We already use a lot of natural rubber in tyres. At least in the winter here in Norway. And those tyres are made by Nokian, Michelin et al.
crazygringo 3y ago
> the solution is natural rubber, which costs slight more than synthetic rubber but lasts longer. So its better for consumers, cheaper all around, and 1,000x better for the environment Is it? I'm Googling but can't find any evidence for that. Natural rubber tires still produce tons of dust, I can't find any reference to it being less harmful in our lungs, and even natural tire rubber seems to biodegrade on the order of thousands of years. Natural tire rubber is still extremely processed. It's nothing like the raw latex that comes out of the plant. So how is it 1000x better for the environment? Or even 2x better, honestly? I'd love to believe it, but I'm surprised I can't find any references easily. Everything I can find refers to it being more sustainable to manufacture. Nothing about its effects on pollution.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kylebenzle 3y ago
  One is a closed system, the other is dumping NEW carbon into the air. The simple accounting is: Plant a seed that grows to a dry weight of 1 lb. That is basically 1 lb of carbon. Turn that into 0.5 lb of rubber. Grind that rubber back down to carbon and we are back to where we started minus the waste.
  - throwaway892238 3y ago
    Is the problem "net carbon", or is it "hey there is 100nm carbon particles entering my brain from my lungs" ? I feel like it's the latter ? And I'm not sure how natural rubber is gonna stop that ?
  - creer 3y ago
    I thought you were trying to address dust?
- michaelteter 3y ago
  > I'm Googling but can't find any evidence for that. I'm sorry, but the parent poster said they have been studying in this domain for 4+ years (including PhD research), and you present doubt because your Google searches are unconvincing? What would it take to convince you? You do realize that what you find on the first 10 pages of Google (or other) search engines could be junk or intentionally targeted misinformation, right?
runeks 3y ago
> (For anyone that cares, the solution is natural rubber, which costs slight more than synthetic rubber but lasts longer. So its better for consumers, cheaper all around, and 1,000x better for the environment but Goodyear, Firestone and Michelin flat out refuse to fund research or even block innovation in natural rubber. I’m skeptical. Wikipedia says: > Synthetic rubbers are superior to natural rubbers in two major respects: thermal stability, and resistance to oils and related compounds. [1] What are they missing? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_rubber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_rubber
ivanjermakov 3y ago
Sounds like a job for EU.

paddy_m 3y ago

Can natural rubber be made as soft as synthetic rubber? What kind of rubber is used on race cars (and dirt bikes)? Cost is much less of an issue for those markets.

bri3d 3y ago
Natural rubber is used extensively in higher-end applications (race cars, trucks, aircraft). However, almost all tires are some hybrid of the two. Generally, natural rubber is used in the construction of the tire "carcass" and sidewalls while synthetic rubber (compounded with a gazillion and one other things) is used to construct the tread. The basic issues are pretty intuitive: * The supply of natural rubber is constrained by the ability to grow the plants which produce it. * It's hard to make synthetic rubber with polymer chains as long as those in natural rubber (isoprene), so natural rubber tends to be more pliable and stronger, while synthetic rubber (styrene) tends to sheer off into microparticles. * However, natural rubber degrades more rapidly when heated and cooled, and is more difficult to control in order to achieve a desired level of stickiness at a given temperature (which is basically what tires are aiming for). I think that OP's research would be quite interesting to learn about more, as my understanding is that tire manufacturers employ hundreds of chemists who are dedicated full-time to attempting to replicate natural rubber synthetically in an efficient way.

cush 3y ago

I wonder if there’s a conflict between companies being willing and able to produce natural rubber tires yet marketing them would also implicate themselves in knowingly destroying the environment. It’s a tough line to straddle.

chmod600 3y ago

Chemically speaking, how is natural rubber different from plastic while still having such similar properties?

kylebenzle 3y ago
Great question! Its super simple, it is ONLY the length of the hydrocarbon chain, a better quality natural rubber has really long chains (10,000+ atoms long) that last a LONG time and are VERY stretchy. Synthetic rubber (or plastic) is shorter (1,000 atoms long) and doesn't last as long. Thats it, it is the exact same "product" just a chain that gets longer and longer and changes its physical properties as it grows.
- traveler01 3y ago
  Noob here, but aren’t the best tires made from natural rubber? Or am I mistaken?
- spqr0a1 3y ago
  It's more than just the chain length. The most common synthetic rubbers are styrene-butadiene copolymers. Natural rubber is polyisoprene. While it is true that shorter chain synthetic polyisoprene is available, it is a much smaller part of the market than styrene-butadiene.
  - dpeckett 3y ago
    Does look like both natural and synthetic polyisoprene is at-least somewhat biodegradeable: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC92035/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC92035/
- alt227 3y ago
  Genuinely interested here. If natural rubber and plastic are exactly the same thing, then why is natural rubber being advocated as a much more environmentally sound alternative? Would'nt the dust from natural rubber tyres be just as problematic as the plastic is now?

blackoil 3y ago

Would it be still cheaper if all tires are made from natural rubber. We shouldn't have old forests destroyed for rubber plantations.

kylebenzle 3y ago
There are two main working solutions that have ALREADY been used and proven to work since WWII. First: a fungal disease has wiped out ALL the rubber trees in south america, thats why we cant grow in it the Western hemisphere, a fungus. If we could grow it here we would and it would drop the price by A LOT. But, we already have a solution, a transgenic species that is resistant, nonsense Government regulation and moronic "public opinion" is the only thing stopping this from fixing the rubber problem overnight. Second: sounds funny, but ever break a dandelion stem in half and see the white stuff come out? That latex, PURE high quality latex. Let that latex air dry and you rubber! No refinement necessary. During WWII they supplied most of the war effort with rubber from dandelions! Yes, it works, its not efficient but progress has been made and with ANY funding at all it could easily produce enough higher quality natural rubber for ALL our need and enough to export. The ONLY problem is that companies make too much money producing low quality "disposable" tires that they will NEVER switch. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6073688/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6073688/ [2] https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish
- pierat 3y ago
  Well you can't make things TOO good! How else would you sell more shit to the proles? We were (or at least I was) told in school that capitalism allowed our civilization to make and sell things we used to only dream about. And when I learned the truth, it was that capitalism was only concerned with how much to sell. If that meant making your products cheaper/worse/less durable on a creeping basis, then that's what the company did. Capitalism itself is subject to enshittification that affects all products and services.
- pstuart 3y ago
  Fascinating fact about dandelions! A nice Fraunhofer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvVJL2GYRHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvVJL2GYRHY

sesuximo 3y ago

If I want to buy a good-for-the environment tire, what should I buy? I don’t care about the price unless it’s insane

xnx 3y ago
Keep your tires properly inflated. Go easy on the accelerator and brake pedal. You'll be doing much more than the average person.
whaleofatw2022 3y ago
Something with a low durometer that rides harsh. Ironically may be worse gas mileage than other tires.
WalterBright 3y ago
Steel wheels.
Liskni_si 3y ago
Schwalbe :-)

clnq 3y ago

I'm curious to hear some thoughts of an expert - how much does natural rubber reduce the pollution for 100 miles driven by a tyre? Can you think of any alternative technical solutions? Can you think of any political solutions?

nerdponx 3y ago

> Goodyear, Firestone and Michelin flat out refuse to fund research or even block innovation What's in it for them? Keeping bad press about tires out of the public view? Fear of lower profit margins?

XorNot 3y ago

Why would natural rubber be better then synthetic rubber for this problem? Asbestos is natural and toxic as hell. Natural rubber currently has the property of being mostly inside trees not being ground up into a fine powder - but there's no obvious reason at scale it would be any better except in terms of "slightly less wear over time". Is it's chemistry fundamentally different?

kwhitefoot 3y ago

We already use a lot of natural rubber in tyres. At least in the winter here in Norway. And those tyres are made by Nokian, Michelin et al.

crazygringo 3y ago

> the solution is natural rubber, which costs slight more than synthetic rubber but lasts longer. So its better for consumers, cheaper all around, and 1,000x better for the environment Is it? I'm Googling but can't find any evidence for that. Natural rubber tires still produce tons of dust, I can't find any reference to it being less harmful in our lungs, and even natural tire rubber seems to biodegrade on the order of thousands of years. Natural tire rubber is still extremely processed. It's nothing like the raw latex that comes out of the plant. So how is it 1000x better for the environment? Or even 2x better, honestly? I'd love to believe it, but I'm surprised I can't find any references easily. Everything I can find refers to it being more sustainable to manufacture. Nothing about its effects on pollution.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kylebenzle 3y ago
One is a closed system, the other is dumping NEW carbon into the air. The simple accounting is: Plant a seed that grows to a dry weight of 1 lb. That is basically 1 lb of carbon. Turn that into 0.5 lb of rubber. Grind that rubber back down to carbon and we are back to where we started minus the waste.
- throwaway892238 3y ago
  Is the problem "net carbon", or is it "hey there is 100nm carbon particles entering my brain from my lungs" ? I feel like it's the latter ? And I'm not sure how natural rubber is gonna stop that ?
- creer 3y ago
  I thought you were trying to address dust?
michaelteter 3y ago
> I'm Googling but can't find any evidence for that. I'm sorry, but the parent poster said they have been studying in this domain for 4+ years (including PhD research), and you present doubt because your Google searches are unconvincing? What would it take to convince you? You do realize that what you find on the first 10 pages of Google (or other) search engines could be junk or intentionally targeted misinformation, right?

runeks 3y ago

> (For anyone that cares, the solution is natural rubber, which costs slight more than synthetic rubber but lasts longer. So its better for consumers, cheaper all around, and 1,000x better for the environment but Goodyear, Firestone and Michelin flat out refuse to fund research or even block innovation in natural rubber. I’m skeptical. Wikipedia says: > Synthetic rubbers are superior to natural rubbers in two major respects: thermal stability, and resistance to oils and related compounds. [1] What are they missing? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_rubber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_rubber

ivanjermakov 3y ago

Sounds like a job for EU.