Using biomaterials to improve fuel efficiency

It may not look like it amid the sea of misty silver, raven black and pearly white vehicles, but a lot of them are also green.  Environmentally green, that is. I’m not just referring to the alternative fuel vehicles – and we’ve covered some of them on TechKnow (hybrids, bio-diesel, hydrogen cell and electric.) Now the auto industry’s green revolution is ramping up including the manufacturing process and even the parts themselves.

Automakers are increasingly vying for the title of  “the greenest of them all.” While I personally frown on the notion that just for participating everyone is a winner, in this case, everyone – and I do mean everyone on earth IS a winner. Major carmakers across the board are cutting water use and waste streams and shrinking carbon footprints. It’s all good.

For instance, “zero-waste” (although it can mean as much as 10% waste) is the new mantra. Factors around the world are boasting how little trash they’re landfilling. Millions of tons of rubbish are recycled and reused: scraps of plastic, packing materials, cardboard, steel do-dads and metal whatnots.

And as manufacturers cut down on car emissions they’re also cutting greenhouse gases from factory lines. An increasing number of plants are tapping into solar power to fuel the production lines. Volkswagen’s 65-acre solar field in Chattanooga, Tennessee tops the list here in the US. But VW is not alone. Just about every carmaker uses some sun power. And these solar systems are just the tip of the iceberg. General Motors is harnessing the biogas from sewage to generate power in Detroit and it’s also got wind power. Nissan’s also plugged into wind too.

Manufacturers are also concentrating on water use. Ford figures it has cut its water use by 61 percent or 10 billion gallons in the last 15 years. How much is that? The US Department of Interior says that the average bathtub holds 50 gallons of water. So if every adult in America took a nice bubble bath right now, that’s about the amount of water that hasn’t gone down the drain. And Toyota is paying it forward with some of its paint sludge… filtering out the solids and turning them over to cement manufacturers. Recirculating the water for later use.

I’ve mentioned Ford a couple of times. I don’t own stock. They were recently ranked first for Best Global Green Brand. So, Ford’s a winner at selling its sustainability and environmental responsibility. And at TechKnow we give’em props for letting us into its sustainability lab. That’s where a creative group of scientists tinker, figuring out how to turn renewable and recyclable materials into something useful.

A little history – it really started with Henry Ford just before the US got into World War Two. Ford was a big fan of the soybean, so much so that he had 12,000 acres of soybeans. He ordered up a soybean-based car model. As the story goes, there was one prototype exhibited at the Michigan State Fair in 1941 made with soy parts. And then the war came, and that was the end of that. 

About three generations later in 2001, a Ford chemist, Debbie Mielewski came up with a way to replace the petroleum-based foam used in car seats with a soybean-based foam. She didn’t even know about Henry’s love of the bean. She just figured it was cheaper and more environmentally sound. Alas no one was biting; gas was cheap about $1.47 a gallon at the pump. But 6 years later, fueled by soaring price of oil in 2007, suddenly she was the smartest person in the room. It also helped that Henry Ford’s grandson, Bill Ford, then the CEO of Ford, was a big environmentalist. He not only kept Debbie’s dream alive, but also approved those soy foam seats for use in the new Mustangs. Now every seat in North America is made from soybean.

We go to a lot of labs here at TechKnow. And this one was one of the most fun. The goal in the lab is to take a renewable or recyclable material – coconut hair, wheat straw, cigarette filters, shredded jeans, old bottles and turn it into a practical product. There are more than 300 pounds of plastic parts in a car. So if you can replace some or all of the petroleum based plastic with a greener product that functions just as well as the original, you’ll have a happier earth.  If you catch our story on TV you’ll see how Ford’s turned billions of dollars of shredded US money into coin trays. Now they’re testing the possibilities for turning the leftover stems, skins and leaves from processing Heinz’s ketchup into something useful for your car.  But like every new “greener” part, the new product has to be at least as durable and easy to work with as the current product. And not smell like pizza. Often the new parts are lighter. And that means better gas mileage. But it’s a long process. In our story we’ve highlighted how Ford has turned 5 million plastic bottles into the fabric for the seats in the popular F-150 truck. It didn’t happen overnight. And it didn’t happen alone. Ford is part of a consortium with Nike, Heinz, Coke and Proctor & Gamble with a mandate to make more “bio-plastic parts.”

For automakers, sustainability is a big goal. Putting the brakes on environmental harm is something we can all get behind. While it may not always be easy to be green, when it comes to the auto industry, it looks like they’re taking the high road.