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Ecomaterials Lab: Ford focuses on dandelions for a sustainable rubber future

Kiley Lambert ( Bio / Posts ) | Monday, May 16, 2011 UTC

PopTech's weekly Ecomaterials Labs series is part of our ongoing, focused look at next-generation sustainable materials innovation.

Russian dandelion, Taraxacum kok-saghyz (TKS)

As part of their ongoing efforts to find alternative, sustainable materials for their products, Ford Motor Co. has teamed with researchers from The Ohio State University to study the possibility of using dandelions as a possible source of rubber.

In a statement released May 10, Ford said it is working to analyze the Russian dandelion, Taraxacum kok-saghyz (TKS), which is being grown at the university’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC). This specific dandelion is used because a milky-white substance excreted from its roots could be used to produce the rubber and even enhance the impact strength of plastics.

As The New York Times noted, Ford has a long history of using alternative materials, with Henry Ford using soy for some car parts in the 1920s. More recently, the company has pushed to get soy-based foam into vehicle seats. No small gesture considering a modern vehicle uses 30 to 40 pounds of foam, and Ford claims to use around 90 million pounds of it each year.

But as popular as these moves to bio-based materials may be, Ford still has a long way to go to achieve the kind of significant impact automakers would like to project.

From the Times:

According to the E.P.A., Ford ranked third from the bottom out of all major automakers in terms of overall vehicle fuel economy and CO2 emissions for 2008-10 model-year vehicles.

“Only about 10 to 20 percent of the emissions are tied up in manufacturing,” said Jim Kliesch, research director in the clean-vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “So that leaves 80 to 90 percent to operating the vehicle and creating the fuel. What Ford is doing is admirable, but at the same time it’d make a lot more sense to improve the overall efficiency of their fleet.”

“I raise this simply to point out that Ford still has work to do,” Mr. Kliesch said.

Via Edmunds Auto Observer

Image: Ohio State University

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