Zeon Corporation and Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd. have announced that they have agreed to establish a pilot facility*1 to demonstrate the technology for the efficient production of butadiene from ethanol derived from plant-based and other sustainable materials.

The facility will be installed at Zeon's Tokuyama Plant (Shunan City, Yamaguchi Prefecture) and is scheduled to start operations in 2026. It will be capable of producing a certain amount of butadiene and will contribute to collecting various data needed for establishing large-scale production.

Extraction of polybutadiene rubber prototypes from produced butadiene

This initiative is in line with one of the two R&D themes selected by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) in 2022 for its project on the development of technologies for producing raw materials for plastics from carbon dioxide and other sources (one of NEDO's Green Innovation Fund projects).

This is a collaborative project led by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tokyo University of Science, and the national research and development agency RIKEN. Zeon and Yokohama Rubber aim to socialize two technologies for the efficient production of butadiene and isoprene from plant-based and other sustainable materials in the 2030s. The pilot equipment set up at the Zeon plant is part of the initiative themed "Efficient Butadiene Synthesis Using Ethanol."

Demonstration experiments at the new pilot facility will showcase the technology of converting ethanol obtained from plant-based and other sustainable materials into butadiene using an efficient catalyst. This will be the first step in determining the feasibility of this technology for the large-scale production of synthetic rubber from plant-based and other sustainable materials.

Zeon will use the butadiene produced at the pilot plant to develop prototypes of polybutadiene rubber (butadiene rubber). Yokohama Rubber will develop tire prototypes using the polybutadiene rubber and conduct driving tests with these tires to collect data necessary for verifying the technology on a larger scale.

Zeon and Yokohama Rubber will continue to collaborate, leveraging their extensive technologies and experience to promote the circular economy and carbon neutrality in the tire and rubber industry, contributing to the realization of a sustainable society.

Two R&D Themes Selected by NEDO

• Efficient Butadiene Synthesis Using Ethanol
  • • Proposing Companies: Zeon and Yokohama Rubber
    • Subcontractors/Collaborating Entities: AIST
    • Project Overview: Development of a technology to efficiently convert ethanol derived from plant-based and other sustainable materials into butadiene. The project aims to establish a method using a pilot facility to achieve the social implementation of the technology by 2030 and commercialization by 2034.
• Development