At this week’s Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, Bridgestone Americas unveiled a concept tire produced using soybean oil – and the tiremaker plans to have soybean oil-supplemented tires on the market next year.
The concept version of the Firestone Radial Deep Tread 23, in size 800/70R38, includes some 90 pounds of soybean oil, or approximately 10% of the gross weight of the tire.
“The soybean oil has replaced all the different petroleum-based processing oils used in the tire’s compounds,” said Tom Rodgers, director of ag tire sales and marketing at Bridgestone. “Engineers and compounders from our Americas Technology Center, and also the company’s Des Moines agricultural tire plant, have been working on this concept tire project for several months. Based on the progress of the project, we expect to begin incorporating soy oil into some of our agricultural tires by early 2013. Our goal is to have soy oil as a component in all of our agriculture tires by the end of 2013.
“Any opportunity to enhance the value of the commodities our customers produce is a win for the industry,” Rogers added. “It’s exciting to have the opportunity to be a customer of our customers, and we are confident that the innovation of using soy oil in our tires is a positive for the global food market.”
Bridgestone claimed that soybean processing yields some 11 pounds of soybean oil from one bushel of soybeans. The oil is a by-product of normal processing of soybeans into farm animal feed.
