Bridgestone plans to use more than $9 million in federal funds to help build a plant in Akron where the company will research an innovative way to produce a major component in tires.
The company plans to study ways to make butadiene, the largest component in synthetic rubber used in tires, from ethanol instead of from fossil fuels. In a press release announcing the project, Bridgestone said converting ethanol to butadiene had the potential to be both more sustainable and more cost-effective than current production methods.
The effort to phase out fossil fuels is “a long road, but it’s undoubtedly going to happen,” said Hans Dorfi, Bridgestone’s senior vice president of product development. He said that, if successful, the technology could allow companies to recycle end-of-life tires into new tires.
“You’re building a new supply chain,” he said.
As part of the pilot program, the company will study the carbon footprint of converting ethanol to butadiene as well as the commercial viability of the process. Bridgestone will do so in partnership with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which will test the viability of the butadiene derived from ethanol, according to a National Environmental Policy Act determination regarding the U.S. Department of Energy’s grant. The new method should reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help Bridgestone make a business case for commercializing the product, the determination letter said.
The $9.3 million grant was received by Bridgestone in January; the company announced last month that it had gotten the money from the energy department’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office and planned to build a plant in Akron. Dorfi said the grant will cover about half the cost of the facility and Bridgestone will pay for the rest.
The design began in October, and the plant is expected to be staffed and operating in three years.
The facility will be built into a multipurpose building at 381 W. Wilbeth Road in Akron, Dorfi said. He said because it’s a demonstration project, there may be a few additional employees, but the company will mostly use the team that’s already on site.
Investment separate from polymer hub money
The Bridgestone project comes on top of nearly $100 million in state and federal funding that is coming to the region to create a polymer hub.
The Bridgestone grant is unrelated to those monies but further underlines that Akron is a center for this type of research, said Steve Millard, president and CEO of the Greater Akron Chamber.
“Every dollar we get that’s producing new things to drive sustainability is another credit for the region,” he said. “We have people in the region who are solving these problems.”
Dorfi said this federal grant and the pilot project were “very much complementary” to the polymer hub dollars.
“It’s a reflection that there’s an ecosystem,” he said.
In addition to the Bridgestone research, the California company BioVerde plans to research an alternate way to create butadiene. That project, which received $11.1 million in federal funds as part of the polymer hub grants, will create an Akron facility to use plant fermentation to create butadiene instead of using fossil fuels. Millard said a planned manufacturing facility for the product will result in $400 million in private investment.
That project is similar to Bridgestone’s, he said, but utilizes a different method to produce butadiene. Millard also said the polymer hub money will allow more small companies like BioVerde to have the space to do research that larger businesses like Bridgestone are already able to do.
“There are a lot of companies here leading breakthroughs,” he said. “More is better in this space.”
Dorfi said Bridgestone’s work further helps Akron’s positioning as a high-tech center. The project is “another signal Akron is ready,” he said.
“The federal government, among others, is really convinced,” Dorfi said.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Bridgestone’s research into butadiene will determine whether the new way of producing it would allow it to be used in Bridgestone tires, the company’s press release said. In the statement, Mark Smale, Bridgestone’s executive director of core polymer science, said the company was “very excited” about the innovative new process, which was awarded funds for its efforts to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Projects like this will help advance the science and technologies necessary to make the industry more sustainable, placing our engineers and scientists at the forefront of potentially revolutionizing how tire makers obtain butadiene in a more nature-positive way,” he said.
Smale told Signal Akron previously that taking invention into innovation was important for the company and the city as part of a regional focus on better ways to make polymers. He called Akron “the thought center for sustainable polymers.” Smale was not available for an interview Tuesday.
Dorfi said the project would try to demonstrate a potential pathway for taking a pilot project to an industrial scale.
“Reinventing the supply chain starts with finding new ways to create the building blocks for renewable sources,” he said.
The technology that Bridgestone will be using was co-developed with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; a spokesperson there didn’t return a phone call seeking comment. Dorfi said the technology is theirs; Bridgestone will work with them to show whether it works at scale.
Bridgestone’s goal is to use 100% sustainable raw materials in its tires by 2050, the company said.
A circular link for tire production
The Department of Energy said the novel method of turning ethanol into butadiene could be a link in a chain of “near-circular tire production where end-of-use tires can be turned into ethanol to produce butadiene, which can then be used to make new tires.”
The normal process to produce butadiene, the DOE said, is energy- and carbon-intensive. The new method could reduce carbon intensity by 85% and still cost about the same to produce.
Dorfi said who will take the technology to market if it’s successful is a later-stage conversation. But he said Bridgestone will be regularly reporting its progress to the Department of Energy, which he said demonstrated its trust in the company through the grant.
“We need to build an ecosystem of sustainable polymers,” Dorfi said. “One project could take us there.”
The determination letter said the pilot project would expect to convert 3 kg an hour of ethanol to butadiene. The project would involve laboratory use of flammable hazardous materials, the letter said. The chemicals would be required to be managed in accordance with environmental regulations.
With the additional research, the letter said, the use of solvents and chemicals at the Bridgestone facility would be expected to increase by about 3,700 pounds a year. But 98% of current emissions are destroyed via flare, according to the letter, and the increased use would likely see the same rate of emissions destruction.
Still, the project will likely require a new or modified permit for air pollution, the letter said, as well as updated information about expected solid waste. It would also likely need a permit from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms due to the amount of ethanol that would be processed at the new plant.
The company plans to spend the first year designing the facility, the second year building it and the third year staffing and operating the pilot plant, Bridgestone said in its release.
“The ultimate success will be at the end, if we can take the technology to an industrial scale from a pilot scale,” Dorfi said.