Sumitomo introduces tyre using less petroleum-based materials

Tokyo --Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. has developed an environmentally friendly tyre it claims cuts the use of petroleum-based materials by nearly 60 percent and rolling resistance 30 percent.

Sumitomo's Dunlop Falken Tyres Ltd. unit will sell the tyre, the Enasave ES801, in Japan's replacement market. It replaces a large percentage of the synthetic rubber with epoxidised natural rubber (ENR), the carbon black with silica, petroleum-based processing oils with vegetable-based ones and the synthetic casing fibres with vegetable fibre-based materials.

Sumitomo introduced the tyre at the Tokyo Motor Show and said these changes have reduced the tyre's composition to 30 percent petroleum-based materials from 56 percent. Sumitomo claims the use of silica-reinforced epoxidised NR cuts the tyre's rolling resistance 30 percent compared with. its conventional tyres.

In addition, the firm has designed the tyre with no lettering in the area between the tread shoulder and sidewall, a change Sumitomo claims reduces a vehicle's aerodynamic drag by the equivalent of removing one side view mirror.

Epoxidised NR is a development that Sumitomo claims allows it to use a higher percentage of NR without sacrificing gripping power, a performance problem associated with NR.

The tyre will come in three sizes, 185/65R15, 195/65R15 and 195/55R16

From Rubber & Plastics News (A Crain publication)