Functional fillers are used by tire industry for more than 100 years to improve performance properties like durability, driving efficiency, and safety. The different filler materials represent approximately 30% of a typical tire by weight independent of passenger car, truck or bus and the vehicle drive, internal combustion engine or electric battery.
UPM BioMotionTM RFF enable tire manufacturers to meet current and future market demands in terms of sustainability while providing additional performance benefits like reduced air permeability, lower rolling resistance, and faster biodegradation of rubber wear.
First tires leveraging the unique performance benefits of UPM BioMotionTM RFF have been successfully developed by our partners. For example, in Nokian Tyres’ Green Step Ligna concept tire, which was recently presented at the German rubber industry conference DKT 2024 in Nürnberg, all fossil carbon black in the tire’s sidewall was fully replaced by UPM BioMotionTM RFF. In this way, the renewable and recycled content of the tire sidewall rubber compound could be increased to 60 wt% in total.