Automotive

Bio tires push a high-performance tread legend into the green era

Bio tires push a high-performance tread legend into the green era
Pirelli's high-performance P-Zero family welcomes cleaner design
Pirelli's high-performance P-Zero family welcomes cleaner design
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Pirelli's high-performance P-Zero family welcomes cleaner design
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Pirelli's high-performance P-Zero family welcomes cleaner design
The recycled-content symbol on the new Pirelli P Zero 70% renewable/recycled tires
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The recycled-content symbol on the new Pirelli P Zero 70% renewable/recycled tires
Pirelli P Zero 70 percent renewable/recycled tires
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The Pirelli P Zero 70% renewable/recycled tires will first appear on Range Rover vehicles
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Pirelli has launched its first full production tires with over 70% bio-based and recycled materials. The new line of P Zero tires was developed for Jaguar Land Rover, and include Forest Stewardship Council certification for natural rubber.

The new P Zeroes will initially be available on 22-inch wheel options for Range Rover vehicles before becoming available for the public. The tires feature an FSC symbol and markings that indicate the total bio-based and recycled materials content.

They contain recycled steel, rice-husk-derived silica, circular carbon black obtained from recycled tires, bio-circular polymers derived from cooking and pyrolysis oils, plus plant-based bio-resins as binders. All of these materials are third-party certified by Bureau Veritas.

The recycled steel is sourced from a variety of scrap metal melted down to create raw steel for re-use. It makes up the belt plies of the tire's inner structure. Certified, renewable natural rubber is used to form a base for the other compounds used in the tire-making process.

The rice-husk-derived silica comes from the plant waste produced when processing rice, while the recycled-tire-based carbon black is obtained from melted-down discarded tires. Cooking oil or pyrolysis oils replace fossil-based petroleum oil, and plant-based plasticizers form the bio-resins that bind the compounds together.

Pirelli P Zero 70 percent renewable/recycled tires
The Pirelli P Zero 70% renewable/recycled tires will first appear on Range Rover vehicles

Pirelli has been moving towards 100% renewables for some time, with its first full-natural-rubber-certified P Zero tires announced back in 2021.

Source: Pirelli

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1 comment
LikingTheViking
I apologize for being a sceptic, and I am by no means a subject expert, but I have a few honest questions and comments regarding this. 1) Aren’t most tires made from natural rubber, being a renewable resource? 2) They get the carbon black from: quote "recycled-tire-based carbon black is obtained from melted-down discarded tires". What is the environmental impact of this process? What chemicals are released and is that properly captured and stored / recycled. 3) Approximately 40% of all steel production worldwide is from recycled material, so well done for getting on that long-established train. 4) Deriving silica (silicon dioxide or SiO2) from discarded rice husks sounds like green virtue signaling. Processing an organic material with uses in areas from farming to construction, just to extract an element that is abundant in nature, with about 59% the mass of the earth’s crust being made up of it, looks to be a bit pointless to me. 5) As for using plant-based oils and plasticizers, that does sound like it is worthwhile and environmentally friendly.