Issue 02/2019
Highlights: Thermoforming Building & Construction Basics: Biobased Packaging
Highlights:
Thermoforming
Building & Construction
Basics: Biobased Packaging
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Materials<br />
Holmer harvesting machines for sugar beet<br />
“We are proud to inaugurate this lighthouse project today.<br />
We are the first tyre manufacturer in the world to invest such<br />
a significant amount in industrializing dandelion rubber.<br />
We see Russian dandelion as an important alternative and<br />
complementary to conventional natural rubber from hevea<br />
brasiliensis allowing us to meet rising global demand in an<br />
environmentally compatible and reliable way.” Additionally,<br />
the investment in the new research laboratory is another<br />
technological milestone on the road to implement the Vision<br />
2<strong>02</strong>5 Continental has developed for its tyre business. “As<br />
part of our Vision 2<strong>02</strong>5 strategy, we have invested far more<br />
than € 2 billion in production, research, and development<br />
as well as in jobs and new products worldwide since 2011.<br />
2018, Anklam now features prominently in the series of<br />
unique projects in Europe, America, and Asia,” highlighted<br />
Setzer.<br />
“We have been working to understand the molecular<br />
basis of the rubber biosynthesis in the dandelion plant for<br />
many years. This biological understanding has now brought<br />
industrial use within reach. With the new test laboratory,<br />
Continental has broken new ground that makes this transfer<br />
concept highly visible,” emphasized Dirk Prüfer, Professor<br />
of Plant Biotechnology at the University of Münster and site<br />
director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology<br />
and Applied Ecology IME, Münster branch.<br />
Continental had presented the plans for the laboratory in<br />
August 2016 and began construction in Anklam in November<br />
2017. The tyre manufacturer has been conducting research<br />
into replacing natural rubber from the tropics with plants<br />
which can be grown at moderate climates since 2011 in<br />
collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute IME in Münster,<br />
the Julius Kühn-Institute in Quedlinburg, the plant breeder<br />
ESKUSA in Parkstetten and other partners in various<br />
research projects with support from the German Federal<br />
Ministry of Education and Research as well as the German<br />
Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The first sample<br />
of a premium winter tyre featuring a tread made from pure<br />
dandelion rubber was brought onto the road in 2014. The<br />
first truck tyre with a tread made from Taraxagum then<br />
followed at International Automobile Fair (IAA) 2016. MT<br />
www.taraxagum.com | www.continental-corporation.com |<br />
www.lfl.bayern.de/ | www.holmer-maschinenbau.com<br />
Info<br />
See a video-clip at:<br />
tinyurl.com/videotaraxagum<br />
Birth of the first Taraxagum tyre<br />
Winter-testing of Taraxagum tyres in Finland<br />
(these photos: Continental - from video clip)<br />
bioplastics MAGAZINE [<strong>02</strong>/19] Vol. 14 21