According to Continental Tyres, dandelions might well be the next big thing in raw materials for tyres. Not the dandelions themselves you understand, but a latex material that can be derived from those plants. Working in conjunction with leading university scientists and researchers, Continental Tyres has concluded that in future, dandelions might be able to supply a tenth of the rubber demand in its home market of Germany. However, Continental Tyres is also keen to point out that growers would have to plant dandelions on a large scale if the industry is to be able to use them to produce natural rubber.
The story behind this remarkable initiative is an interesting one. In a way, Continental Tyres has effectively "latched onto" results of a university study into the latex properties inherent in dandelions. Since learning of this discovery Continental Tyres has been working hard to promote the idea, and today is a member of a consortium of research institutes and partners who intend to transform the results into finished products. It need hardly be said that with the backing of Continental Tyres; one of the leading European manufacturers, the project is already well and truly off to a good start.
When Continental Tyres first became associated with the project, a leading research team at the University of Münster in Germany had already subjected the Asteracea family (dandelion) flower to a number of lab tests and observed that it produces a gum elastic equal in quality to rubber tree latex. According to a spokesperson for Continental Tyres, the first research results clearly showed that Russian dandelions were capable of producing a high-quality natural rubber. The physical and chemical properties of this rubber match up well with those of rubber taken from the Brazilian rubber tree with which Continental Tyres, as a leading innovator in automotive tyre technology, is already familiar.
For Continental Tyres however, one of the most important aspects of this new discovery is the research, development and production engineering required to enable the dandelion latex to be used as a raw material in the production process. Clearly Continental Tyres, like any other leading tyre manufacturer, must rapidly establish the economies and efficiencies of the process if eventual tyre production is to be viable in terms of both cost-effectiveness and end product quality. In this respect, the project is already making progress because the university team's biochemists have found the enzyme that governs polymerisation of the plant's latex and have managed to 'switch off' this enzyme to enable the latex to flow freely and be siphoned off. Understandably, Continental Tyres sees this as a major step forward.
Another important possibility that has clearly not been lost on Continental Tyres is that the project is of great interest in terms of material development. Success in making dandelions a source of natural rubber would enable Continental Tyres to respond at rather short notice to supply shifts. This is because the plant needs only one year from seeding to harvest. By contrast, setting up a run-of-the-mill rubber plantation requires roughly five to seven years from the cutting of the first sod to the harvesting of the latex.
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