Organic waste are a substitute for producing rubber

Researchers at The Ohio State University?have discovered that food waste can partially replace the petroleum-based filler that has been used in manufacturing tires for more than a century.In tests, rubber made with the new fillers exceeds industrial standards for performance, which may ultimately open up new applications for rubber. As?Katrina Cornish?explains it, the technology has the potential to solve three problems: It makes the manufacture of rubber products more sustainable, reduces American dependence on foreign oil and keeps waste out of landfills. Cornish, an Ohio Research Scholar and Endowed Chair in Biomaterials at Ohio State, has spent years cultivating new domestic rubber sources, including a?rubber-producing dandelion. Now she has a patent-pending method for turning eggshells and tomato peels into viable?and locally sourced?replacements for?carbon black, a petroleum-based filler that American companies often purchase from overseas. About 30 percent of a typical automobile tire is carbon black; it?s the reason tires appear black. It makes the rubber durable, and its cost varies with petroleum prices.?Carbon black is getting harder to come by, Cornish said. ?The tire industry is growing very quickly, and we don?t just need more natural rubber, we need more filler, too,? she explained. ?The number of tires being produced worldwide is going up all the time, so countries are using all the carbon black they can make. There?s no longer a surplus, so we can?t just buy some from Russia to make up the difference like we used to. The second most popular vegetable in the United States?the tomato?also provides a source of filler, the researchers found. Americans eat?13 million tons of tomatoes per year, most of them canned or otherwise processed. Commercial tomatoes have been bred to grow thick, fibrous skins so that they can survive being packed and transported long distances. When food companies want to make a product such as tomato sauce, they peel and discard the skin, which isn?t easily digestible. Cindy Barrera, a postdoctoral researcher in Cornish?s lab, found in tests that eggshells have porous microstructures that provide larger surface area for contact with the rubber, and give rubber-based materials unusual properties. Tomato peels, on the other hand, are highly stable at high temperatures and can also be used to generate material with good performance. Current Ohio State doctoral student Jessica Slutzky and former master?s student Griffin Michael Bates participated in the research. The university has licensed the patent-pending technology to Cornish?s company,?EnergyEne, for further development. ? Image:?Researchers at The Ohio State University have developed a patent-pending technology for incorporating food waste into rubber. Photo by Kenneth Chamberlain, courtesy of The Ohio State University.More information