Growing American Rubber: Strategic Plants and the Politics of National Security, by Mark R. Finlay, plots out intersecting networks of actors including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, prominent botanists, interned Japanese Americans, Haitian peasants, and ordinary citizens—all of whom contributed to this search for economic self-sufficiency. Challenging once-familiar boundaries between agriculture and industry and field and laboratory, Finlay also identifies an era in which perceived divisions between natural and synthetic came under review. Although synthetic rubber emerged from World War II as one solution, the issue of ever-diminishing natural resources and the question of how to meet consumer, military, and business demands lingers today.

For more information on the book, click here.

According to Dr. Cornish, the next hundred years of rubber history belong to guayule! “With a history that spans Model-T tires to today’s high-performance Type I Latex Allergy safe products, guayule has both a long history and an exciting, diverse future,” said Dr. Cornish

Dr. Cornish’s presentation, entitled A Century of History has Created a Sustainable Economic Reality: The Next Hundred Years of Rubber Belong to Guayule will be available soon. For more information on the ACS’s Rubber Division, visit www.rubber.org.

To familiarize yourself with the history of guayule, see the Guayule Timeline.

Dr. Katrina Cornish, Yulex Corporation

See the March 2009 article from Slate.com, What’s the Greenest Form of Birth Control to learn more.

One medical product made from Yulex® Natural Rubber, examination gloves from Yulex Corp., already has 510(k) FDA approval but there’s another product expected to receive the same approval later this year. TechDevice Corp., makers of a new guayule natural rubber balloon catheter, plan to file their submission with the FDA during the second quarter of 2009 and approval is expected soon thereafter.

According to TechDevice, guayule is a natural choice with its improved physical, chemical and biological properties over high-end synthetic materials often used in balloon catheters. It’s also more effective with better tensile strength than enzyme-treated tropical natural rubber latex. Extensive testing data from the Yulex 510(k) application for exam gloves also will help as TechDevice moves forward with its submission to the FDA.

Though TechDevice initially will use Yulex Natural Rubber for the development and manufacturing of three balloon catheters, the company believes that catheter balloons are only the first part of numerous possibilities for devices incorporating guayule.

Guayule is already a commercial source for high performance, safe natural rubber, but researchers from the USDA ARS, Yulex Corporation and Mendel Biotechnology, Inc. are exploring the use of guayule as an economical and environmentally friendly energy source. Researchers have found that energy can be made from ground-up guayule stems and branches, called “bagasse,” that are left after the latex has been removed. Guayule bagasse would provide about the same amount of energy as charcoal.

Researchers are exploring use of the bagasse as a source of ethanol, bio-oil, and synthetic gas, or syn-gas. With a pretreatment, guayule bagasse can be readily fermented into ethanol. Additionally, researchers have found that the contents of guayule bagasse can be burned to generate electricity, made into value-added products or converted into bio-oil.

A few benefits of guayule as an energy source:

-      Cost: The cost of getting to the bagasse as a starting point has already been borne by the latex-extraction.

-      Competition: Guayule isn’t a food or feed crop so it’s doesn’t compete with those uses.

-      Clean and Green: the latex extraction process uses water, not harsh solvents.

To learn more, see the recent USDA Agricultural Research Service article, Go Native With This Promising Biofuel—and Biomedical—Crop.

See a new report, Protect Yourself from Latex Allergy, from Ivanhoe Broadcast News for more information.

The project aims to develop new crops for the production and exploitation of natural rubber and latex in the European Union. 

The EU-PEARLS project has a budget of 7.7 million Euros, 5.6 million of which will be covered by EU-funding and the balance by non-EU partners. It officially began in April and is set to run through 2012.

A press release from the EU-PEARLS program included the following:

“Natural rubber is a unique and valuable raw material that is essential to industry, medicine, personal care, and transportation. In many of these applications it cannot be replaced by synthetic – petroleum – based materials. Currently, its major source is the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis. Increased worldwide demand for natural rubber and latex, a fungal disease potentially capable of destroying Hevea brasiliensis plantations in South-East Asia, and allergies to Hevea brasiliensis latex, are important drivers to develop alternative – domestic sources of latex and natural rubber, the two most promising of which are the North-American shrub Parthenium argentatum (guayule) and Taraxacum koksaghyz (Russian dandelion).

 

“The EU-PEARLS Consortium links stakeholders in the EU and elsewhere in the development, exploitation and sustainable use of these plants, aiming to establish complete new value creation chains.

“The EU-PEARLS project includes the collection and creation of new germplasm, and research into the biochemistry and genetics of rubber biosynthesis, breeding and agronomy of guayule and Russian dandelion, processing of the crops, and product development. Analysis of the rubber biosynthetic pathway in these crops, aided by mapping of genes involved in rubber biosynthesis, will help to identify potential bottlenecks, and accelerate conventional breeding for commercially-viable rubber yields. Helper organisms will include Arabidopsis thaliana and Baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Improved plants will be tested for efficient growth and rubber production in the field under different climatic and edaphic conditions in Europe. In parallel, methods to process the plants, and harvest the latex and rubber will be evaluated and optimised. Furthermore, the technical performance and economic potential of rubber extracted from these plants will be evaluated by producing specific prototypes, such as surgical gloves and tires.

“The EU-PEARLS consortium is a collaborative network of European research organisations and industrial participants, with the necessary scientific and administrative expertise and cross-disciplinary experience to meet the project objectives, which include establishment of the two new crop plants and the required processing industry. Furthermore, the potential economic, environmental and societal effects in terms of jobs, water and land requirements, and pollution will be investigated.”

For further information, please contact

Dr. Hans Mooibroek

EU-PEARLS Coordinator
Wageningen UR
Agrotechnology & Food Sciences Group - Biobased Products, Department of Bioconversion
P.O.Box 17
NL-6700 AA Wageningen
Bornsesteeg 59 (Bldg 118; Atrium)
NL-6708 PD Wageningen
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-(0)317-480214
Reception Desk: +31-(0)317-480084
Fax: +31-(0)317-483011
E-mail: hans.mooibroek@wur.nl