moss on your wheels to generate oxygen.
Goodyear has us used to very crazy concepts, and if last year it showed its idea of creating spherical tires, at the 2018 Geneva International Motor Show it has presented an even more peculiar prototype. Is about a tire lined with moss to generate, according to the manufacturer, oxygen while we circulate.
This new tire concept has been named Oxygene, and Goodyear presents it as a solution for cleaner urban travel. With it, they want to put the emphasis on reducing material waste, emissions and energy loss, although at the moment they have not given specific details about its operation, only general concepts.
“With more than two-thirds of the world’s population projected to live in cities by 2050, the demand for transportation networks in urban settings will increase substantially,” said Chris Delaney, President of Goodyear Europe, Middle East and Africa. “Smarter and greener infrastructure and transportation will be crucial in addressing the most pressing challenges of urban mobility and development.”
Tires that generate oxygen and electricity
Goodyear Oxygene tires have an open structure with live mosses growing within its side wall. This structure, together with the design of the tire tread, causes moisture and water from the road to slide into the moss for it to absorb and photosynthesize. In this way, and always according to Goodyear, the moss on the wheels will release oxygen into the air as we circulate.
During its photosynthesis the moss on the wheels you should also inhale CO2 from the air to feed. According to the company, in a city with about 2.5 million vehicles this would generate 3,000 tons of oxygen by absorbing more than 4,000 tons of carbon per year. But of course, that is only in the case that all those cars used these tires, and they have not provided any study to corroborate the information.
Goodyear ensures that the moss on your wheels will also generate electricity through photosynthesis, and that this would be enough to power its internal electronic components. These would be a series of sensors that collect information about the road and tires, and send them to the car through a Li-Fi system. Or at least that’s what they want to achieve.
Also, the idea is to build these tires using 3D printing, using rubber powder from recycled tires to make them even more environmentally friendly. The resulting structure would be lightweight and capable of absorbing shocks, presenting itself as a durable and tire-immune solution.
At the moment it is only a conceptual design
But as we have said, it is just a conceptual design one of the many shown in Geneva these days, and which has been envisioned by the manufacturer for tomorrow. This means that it is an idea that is still in the initial stages, and that in the best of cases it could arrive within a few years.
Nor have they given too many technical details to specify the details of how the moss works, nor the amount of CO2 that they will consume and the oxygen that they will release. Therefore, there is also no way of knowing how much it will make a difference and it will actually make cities cleaner. We will have to wait to see if the design passes this conceptual phase and is developed by the company to have more details.
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