Bridgestone Americas plots out pilot butadiene plant in Akron

Bridgestone Americas Inc., which employs about 45,000 worldwide, says it has begun work on a new plant in Akron to produce butadiene, a key ingredient in synthetic rubber—and therefore also a key component in nearly all of the tires on the road today, not to mention at mines, farms, racetracks and other places tires are used. 

Bridgestone is getting a big boost in terms of public money from the Department of Energy and is partnering with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, one of the federal government’s 17 national labs across the country. 

The DOE reports it’s putting $9.2 million toward the project, which Bridgestone says will be a pilot plant focused on producing butadiene from ethanol. 

On its website with grant information, the DOE says the project “aims to demonstrate an ethanol to butadiene process enabled by a novel catalyst developed by Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations' project partner, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.” 

That technology is part of an effort to create “near-circular” tire production that entails using old tires to produce the ethanol that will be used to make butadiene, and with that, new tires, the DOE says. 

The project fits with Akron’s recent designation as a national industry cluster and hub for sustainable polymer development, something the Greater Akron Chamber has organized and championed for at least the last three years.

Brian Anderson, the chamber’s vice president for the polymer industry cluster—and the person largely responsible for the industry hub winning more than $80 million in recent state and federal funding—said he doesn’t have a lot of details on the plant’s eventual size or payroll, but expects the development to be an important one for Akron. 

It’s just the latest of many investments Bridgestone has made in Akron, many of which are near the company’s big Bridgestone Americas Technical Center which already employs more than 700 people in Firestone Park.

“It strikes me as something that’s potentially quite impactful,” Anderson said. “I live in Firestone Park and I’ve seen the big investments Bridgestone has made there. They put a test track in there a couple of years ago and an advanced tire manufacturing plant. It seems like Bridgestone is kind of doubling down on their investment in Akron.”

That tire manufacturing plant Anderson refers to is Bridgestone’s $21 million Advanced Tire Manufacturing plant, which was announced in 2022 and now employs about 60 people. It produces tires for Indy-series race cars, which reportedly go through about 25,000 tires a year.

That’s also the last plant to be built in the last 70 years. Like the other facilities, that plant sits near the company’s Bridgestone Americas Technical Center, just across Main Street, on the other side of the Akron Rubber Ducks’ Canal Park baseball field. 

Details on the upcoming butadiene pilot plant are still scarce and Bridgestone said it was not ready to say what it plans to invest in the facility, how big it will be, or how many people it might employ. But it appears to be a significant investment for the company as well as the federal government. It will take three years to design and build, said Bridgestone Director, Advanced Polymer Science Mark Smale, a Hudson resident. 

“The project officially kicks off this month and is expected to span at least three years,” Smale said via email. “In the first year, we’ll focus on designing the pilot plant. In the second year, construction of the plant will take place in Akron. Then, in the third year, we’ll be staffing and beginning operations at the pilot plant.

Smale said the pilot plant will be located within the existing Bridgestone Polymer Engineering Pilot Center. 

Davis Adams-Smith, Bridgestone Americas director of public relations, said that site, where the company already does some of its other research and develops testing technologies, is 35 acres in size and has 49 employees. 

The size of the new plant within that site, and its costs, will be determined as it’s designed, Smale said, but he views the investment as a significant one for Bridgestone, and the tire industry.

“This project is a strategic priority for us, as it will drive advancements in science and technology essential to making the industry more sustainable,” Smale said. “We view this as an investment in both our future and the future of the tire industry.”

It could have positive ramifications for the rest of us, too, since the plant intends to focus on ethanol derived from sustainable sources and reduce the amount of carbon generated in butadiene production.

“The pilot plant’s initial goal is to assess and prove the economic viability of deriving butadiene from ethanol conversion versus fossil fuel conversion in testing scenarios. If the economics prove viable, then low carbon intensity ethanol (derived from bio-based or recycled materials) could replace the use of fossil fuels in the process to obtain butadiene,” Smale said. 

“If this project proceeds as expected during the testing phase, then Bridgestone will look to expand, scale and commercialize butadiene converted from ethanol in future product development.”