This has huge implications. They were able to cut into a sheet and not only does it not tear but it still supports weight. This basically removes entirely one of the biggest downsides to rubber when selecting substrates for any number of applications.
Thanks for sharing
hoseja 7 hours ago [-]
They only seem to have made a thin film though, can this be produced in bulk?
elihu 6 hours ago [-]
I wonder what the implications for tires are? Apparently modern tires about 1/3 natural rubber. Presumably if they could be made of close to 100% natural rubber, it would mean less microplastic entering the environment from tire wear. On the other hand, you'd need about 3x as much natural rubber production as we have now, which might not be realistic.
The wear characteristics would come into play too, though. If pure rubber tires wear out faster than mostly-synthetic rubber tires, then you'd need even more natural rubber. On the other hand, if it wears much more slowly than typical modern tires, then maybe current rubber production is sufficient.
(EVs are also prone to somewhat faster tire wear due to additional weight.)
kragen 2 hours ago [-]
The rubber can also be synthetic, but natural rubber is longer-lasting. The other ⅔ of the tire are mostly carbon black, which is much cheaper than natural rubber and enormously increases the rubber's wear resistance by making it harder. This also improves fuel efficiency by reducing rolling resistance. As https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_black explains:
> The highest volume use of carbon black is as a reinforcing filler in rubber products, especially tires. While a pure gum vulcanization of styrene-butadiene has a tensile strength of no more than 2 MPa and negligible abrasion resistance, compounding it with 50% carbon black by weight improves its tensile strength and wear resistance as shown in the table below. (...) Practically all rubber products where tensile and abrasion wear properties are important use carbon black, so they are black in color. Where physical properties are important but colors other than black are desired, such as white tennis shoes, precipitated or fumed silica has been substituted for carbon black. Silica-based fillers are also gaining market share in automotive tires because they provide better trade-off for fuel efficiency and wet handling due to a lower rolling loss. Traditionally silica fillers had worse abrasion wear properties, but the technology has gradually improved to a point where they can match carbon black abrasion performance.
So, does this new technique have implications for tires? I don't know. Even if it can be applied industrially at scale, it might make tires less abrasion-resistant rather than more so. Or maybe it will increase the abrasion-resistance and tensile strength of the unfilled rubber, permitting the use of less filler for tires that are more expensive but longer-lasting.
atrus 4 hours ago [-]
> it would mean less microplastic
The term plastic is so vague and overloaded now that it won't. Is an elastomer a plastic? Depends on who you ask. Does a plastic have to be derived from petroleum? Depends on who you ask.
metalman 3 hours ago [-]
tire dust is specifaly toxic to juvinile fish, and as all roads are ditched, any extream early spring
rain event will gather and float a concentrated pulse of tire dust into the equatic environment and cause mass mortality in stream and river bound juvinele fish such as salmon
my understanding is that it is additives used to make tires tougher that is the main culprit, so the anouncement of an essentialy zero cost way to gain longer lasting tires that produce less, less toxic dust is good news
lukas099 2 hours ago [-]
Last I looked into it, the tire companies were looking at making rubber from dandelions, somehow. Seemed like it would be great if it actually became viable.
kragen 2 hours ago [-]
Dandelion rubber was totally a viable thing in Soviet Russia, or, rather, Soviet Kazakhstan. Like many technologies, it's not a question of feasibility but of economic competitiveness.
> TKS was cultivated on a large scale in the Soviet Union during World War II. The Soviet Union cultivated Taraxacum kok-saghyz, together with Taraxacum hybernum and Scorzonera tau-saghyz, on a large scale between 1931 and 1950—notably during World War II—as an emergency source of rubber when supplies of rubber from Hevea brasiliensis in Southeast Asia were threatened. The United States, the UK, Germany, Sweden and Spain also cultivated the plant for the same reason. During this time period, the highest yields achieved by the U.S. reached 110 kg of rubber per hectare, while the USSR achieved yields of 200 kg of rubber per hectare. The Raisko sub-camp of Auschwitz was a German-operated production factory for the plant. Some of the women deported on the Convoi des 31000 worked on its production there.[8] With the conclusion of World War II and the return of affordable Hevea brasiliensis rubber (which has 8 to 10 times the yield[9]), the majority of T. kok-saghyz programs ceased.
actionfromafar 5 hours ago [-]
I think it must be much faster tire wear counted in pounds, because the EV tires are also larger.
Thanks for sharing
The wear characteristics would come into play too, though. If pure rubber tires wear out faster than mostly-synthetic rubber tires, then you'd need even more natural rubber. On the other hand, if it wears much more slowly than typical modern tires, then maybe current rubber production is sufficient.
(EVs are also prone to somewhat faster tire wear due to additional weight.)
> The highest volume use of carbon black is as a reinforcing filler in rubber products, especially tires. While a pure gum vulcanization of styrene-butadiene has a tensile strength of no more than 2 MPa and negligible abrasion resistance, compounding it with 50% carbon black by weight improves its tensile strength and wear resistance as shown in the table below. (...) Practically all rubber products where tensile and abrasion wear properties are important use carbon black, so they are black in color. Where physical properties are important but colors other than black are desired, such as white tennis shoes, precipitated or fumed silica has been substituted for carbon black. Silica-based fillers are also gaining market share in automotive tires because they provide better trade-off for fuel efficiency and wet handling due to a lower rolling loss. Traditionally silica fillers had worse abrasion wear properties, but the technology has gradually improved to a point where they can match carbon black abrasion performance.
So, does this new technique have implications for tires? I don't know. Even if it can be applied industrially at scale, it might make tires less abrasion-resistant rather than more so. Or maybe it will increase the abrasion-resistance and tensile strength of the unfilled rubber, permitting the use of less filler for tires that are more expensive but longer-lasting.
The term plastic is so vague and overloaded now that it won't. Is an elastomer a plastic? Depends on who you ask. Does a plastic have to be derived from petroleum? Depends on who you ask.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum_kok-saghyz
> TKS was cultivated on a large scale in the Soviet Union during World War II. The Soviet Union cultivated Taraxacum kok-saghyz, together with Taraxacum hybernum and Scorzonera tau-saghyz, on a large scale between 1931 and 1950—notably during World War II—as an emergency source of rubber when supplies of rubber from Hevea brasiliensis in Southeast Asia were threatened. The United States, the UK, Germany, Sweden and Spain also cultivated the plant for the same reason. During this time period, the highest yields achieved by the U.S. reached 110 kg of rubber per hectare, while the USSR achieved yields of 200 kg of rubber per hectare. The Raisko sub-camp of Auschwitz was a German-operated production factory for the plant. Some of the women deported on the Convoi des 31000 worked on its production there.[8] With the conclusion of World War II and the return of affordable Hevea brasiliensis rubber (which has 8 to 10 times the yield[9]), the majority of T. kok-saghyz programs ceased.