An American startup intends to commercialize sunflower rubber
American agrotech startup Edison Agrosciences announced that it has raised $600,000 in funding, which will be invested in exploring the possibility of obtaining large volumes of natural rubber from sunflowers. The company is based in St. Louis, Missouri, and the investors include BioGenerator, Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC), Crisp & Company, and others.
In EA, they note that natural rubber is a necessary raw material for the production of thousands of products used in everyday life, and its properties still surpass all synthetic analogs. At the same time, despite the high demand, there is no domestic source of natural rubber in the United States, and supplies are mainly carried out from plantations of Brazilian hevea in Southeast Asia, where outbreaks of this plant disease can occur, as well as deforestation continues.
A possible solution could be the production of rubber from sunflowers - a crop that is already grown on an area of 400,000 hectares throughout the United States, which is potentially enough to produce more than 25,000 tons of natural rubber per year. At the same time, the current concentration of rubber in sunflowers is too low to make its production economically viable, so EA is working to increase the share of its content in plants and improve yields through breeding.
At the initial stage, the attracted funds will go towards continuing research, including the completion of the third year of field trials, as well as expanding production capacities to transfer products to customers who evaluate their properties, and developing the supply chain.
"The investments will allow us to improve our technological and intellectual capabilities, further increase the volume of rubber produced, and create a stable source of this material within the country," said David Woodburn, CEO of EA. "Our company has grown significantly thanks to the support of such forward-thinking partners as DARPA, and we are pleased to be able to offer such necessary innovations."
The company adds that, although natural rubber is used in many industries, its main consumers are tire manufacturers, which account for about 70% of the volume of the material produced. "Leading tire manufacturers are aware of market dynamics and significant risks associated with rubber production," EA says. "For this reason, they invest in the development of new rubber-bearing crops and invest to make them a source of raw materials in the future."
Tire manufacturers are indeed working on replacing rubber from hevea, and currently, the most promising alternatives are dandelion and guayule, and not so long ago, the company Linglong showed a concept tire made using rubber obtained from the latex of Eucommia ulmoides, which grows in China.