Where the rubber meets the rowed..............
Posted on 01/06/2009 12:25:05 PM PST by Red Badger
There's more that one way to green a car, and many of the most interesting technological advancements don't involve powering an internal combustion engine. Consider that much of the fabric, plastic and rubber that goes into a car's construction is derived from petroleum, and you see why alternatives are becoming increasingly attractive. Automakers have taken up corn-based plastics and soy-based seat foam, and now the latest greenery comes by way of defatted soy flour. The latter is an organic substance that's being considered as a replacement for the petroleum-based "carbon black" rubber particles that are currently specified in the vast majority of tires.
The technology has a long way to go before we could be driving on soybeans, and there are likely issues involving using a possible feedstock as a petroleum replacement (again) that will need to be worked out. Still, as pressure builds to abandon the use of petroleum in as many ways as possible, advancements are likely to become a bigger part of our day-to-day transportation needs.
[Source: DairyHerd.com]
Where the rubber meets the rowed..............
Now, if they were edible...
Bet they would taste the same as bean curd.
I work in that industry, it will never happen. Carbon black works and it has nothing to do with being “green” or not, the stuff is just carbon anyway and it’s dirt cheap.
Where the tofu meets the road.
They learned nothing from the corn/ethanol debacle. But then liberals are not interested in facts.
It’d smell like a burnt burrito..............
And if rodents like soy......?
Only the gang-green hippies will buy the tofu tires anyway. Will a Toyota Pious even do a burnout? I think not.
The only burnouts will be the drivers!
Carbon Black causes cancer in California........So they ban all products with carbon black......Since they are the largest market for tires, then everybody else will get soy tires, too..........Instead of Mickey Thompson Slick 60’s we’ll get Mickey Mouse Silk Soy tires..........
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I assume all rodent do like soy, especially squirrels........
It doesn’t matter, pretty soon they will finally get the right compound and go with urethane over rubber anyway. More money, but much longer life and less disposal which is what the greenies are really concerned with.
For liberals, history started at breakfast this morning............
Somehow, Burning Urethane! just doesn’t have that ring to it.............
WHAT FLAVOR?????.............
Yeah, Meatloaf singing “Where the Urethane meets the road” doesn’t have the same ring either....
A little more on the same subject from agnetwork.com:
[Defatted Soy Flour Eyed As Filler Substitute For Making Tires
Agricultural Research Service scientists Lei Jong and Jeffrey Byars are testing soy flour as a “green” filler for tires and other natural rubber products.
Today’s fillers are typically petroleum-based particles called “carbon black.” Tire manufacturers use them in rubber to improve tensile strength and wear resistance. But petroleum’s many competing uses, rising costs and ties to pollution have rekindled interest in biobased alternatives, especially those derived from homegrown crops like soybeans.
Soy flour is primarily used in cooking and baking. But Jong and Byars’ studies at the ARS Cereal Products and Food Science Research Unit in Peoria, Ill., indicate the flour also could serve as an inexpensive alternative to today’s carbon-black tire fillers.
The researchers use defatted soy flour that’s been dispersed in water to form aggregates 10 microns in diameter (about 1/1000th of an inch). Then they add the aggregates to rubber latex and freeze-dry the mixture. This causes the aggregates to form a tight interconnecting network through the rubber.
For lab tests, the researchers mold the soy-based rubber into samples and subject them to shearing and other forces. Of particular interest is the “storage modulus,” which measures the elasticity of a material. On average, the storage modulus scores of composites containing 30 percent soy flour are 20 times higher than filler-free rubber, but somewhat lower than those reinforced with carbon black.
In addition to testing other biobased filler materials, the researchers are collaborating with rubber manufacturers to further explore the technology.
A report on the research was recently published online in the Journal of Applied Polymer Science.
Source: USDA]
There are also engineers working on improved methods for recycling used tires into carbon black suitable for road tire use.
Lives? What do lives matter when we have a planet to save!!!!.....
Recent studies have implicated carbon black in manufacturing illnesses, do you have a source for California banning its use or just an assumption some sort will happen?
I was just assuming. Everything causes cancer in California...............
You’re right about the lack of flavor. Even squirrels turn their noses up at the sight of tofu (defatted or not). I know because once I put out a small cube of cooked bean curd that was left over from dinner.
http://www.scorecard.org/chemical-profiles/summary.tcl?edf_substance_id=1333-86-4
It’s on the California list of known carcinogens.......
Most of the "planet savers" have a demonstrated anti-human record.
The lower quality is admitted in this sentence.
Absolutely! They want Mother Gaea to return to its all natural past with no humans to spoil its pristine wilderness. If that means the deaths of billions of people, so be it..............
Oh joy untold!
Back in WW2 days, tires were not to be had at any price for the average driver.
Someone finally came out with "reclaimed rubber" tires. You could get maybe 4000 miles on a set at the 35 mph national speed limit.
I realize we're talking two different things, but you reminded me of the golden olden days.
I found myself one evening in 1944 sitting quietly in the living room while these two total strangers entered the door at my father’s bidding. Quite unaccustomed to visitors at all, this four-year old could only gawk at their appearance - one dressed in what looked like a suit that had seen better days and the other in workclothes quite like my daddy who leaned down each morning to kiss me as the sweet smells of yesterday’s sweat and a new morning’s Aqua Velva assaulted both my senses and my underdeveloped lungs; only, these two guys talked in quiet voices like they were afraid they might wake up my mother and maybe the people next door.
After about an hour of whispering interrupted by murmurs of “I can do better than this,” a wad of crumpled, crinkled and pocket-worn bills lay on the table and a small electrical machine which went round and round and whirred when plugged in the place of where the light might be on an ordinary night the deal was struck and outside the Aqua Velva man and my dad, now smelling more like the cutting oil that soaked his shoes each day slipped outside to close the bargain.
The bargain?, one might ask,? why the broken down old car in the backyard, the one with no transmission but three good tires, the tires that money couldn’t buy, the bargain made good by the vagaries of time; no one considered carbon to be anymore than than the lead in their pencil.
Such was the screen that passed in front of a four year old’s mind when the smell of war was half a world away but the smell of Aqua Velva was as close as his front door.
I’m a lousy editor - always double-typing:
found myself one evening in 1944 sitting quietly in the living room while these two total strangers entered the door at my father’s bidding. Quite unaccustomed to visitors at all, this four-year old could only gawk at their appearance - one dressed in what looked like a suit that had seen better days and the other in workclothes quite like my daddy who leaned down each morning to kiss me as the sweet smells of yesterday’s sweat and a new morning’s Aqua Velva assaulted both my senses and my underdeveloped lungs; only, these two guys talked in quiet voices like they were afraid they might wake up my mother and maybe the people next door.
After about an hour of whispering interrupted by murmurs of “I can do better than this,” a wad of crumpled, crinkled and pocket-worn bills lay on the table and a small electrical machine which went round and round and whirred when plugged in the place of where the light might be on an ordinary night the deal was struck and outside the Aqua Velva man and my dad, now smelling more like the cutting oil that soaked his shoes each day slipped outside to close the bargain.
The bargain?, one might ask,? why the broken down old car in the backyard, the one with no transmission but three good tires, the tires that money couldn’t buy, the bargain made good by the vagaries of time; no one considered carbon to be anymore than the lead in their pencil.
Such was the screen that passed in front of a four year old’s mind when the smell of war was half a world away but the smell of Aqua Velva was as close as his front door.
(It's recycled)
But does it have electrolytes?.................
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I have high hopes for this stuff. Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant