Cabot 'evolving' with sustainability expectations

BOSTON—When sustainability demands more of your company and your products, you rise to the occasion.

Simply, you evolve.

And with the launch of its newest technology platform—dubbed Evolve—Cabot Corp. is doing exactly that. It is committing to growing, adapting and advancing its reinforcing carbons around critical sustainability initiatives. And it will do so at an industrial scale without compromising performance and reliability.

To achieve its aims, Cabot said it will take a multi-channeled approach to sustainability, leveraging its expertise in three key areas to advance its product development.

Namely, the company will leverage:

• Circular value chains by turning to materials recovered from end-of-life tires;
• Renewable and bio-based materials; and
• Processes that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"The introduction of Evolve Sustainable Solutions is an important step in Cabot's journey to develop new ways to create materials that improve daily life and enable a more sustainable future," the company said in a statement. "The platform will focus Cabot's efforts on the development of breakthrough sustainable products and process technologies that deliver the performance, quality and consistency that the industry requires at scale."

With Evolve, Cabot has further refined its sustainability vision, articulating three categories across which it plans to focus its research and development efforts as well as operational and manufacturing efficiencies. Cabot defines these as:

• Recovered: Developing reinforcing carbons from circular value chains that are produced using materials recovered from end-of-life-tires—tire pyrolysis oils through an ISCC Plus mass balance approach, for instance—or reclaimed carbons co-pelletized with virgin carbon blacks.
• Renewable: Developing reinforcing carbons made from renewable materials, such as bio-based feedstocks through an ISCC Plus mass balance approach and from bio-based particles.
• Reduced: Developing reinforcing carbons made with a reduced GHG footprint from decarbonization technologies, such as emissions capture technologies and other decarbonization processes such as CO2 capture and sequestration.

"Our Evolve Sustainable Solutions program represents a significant portion of Cabot's R&D spend, with the goal that 100 percent of product and process development projects will have a sustainability benefit by 2025," Cabot said in a video detailing the program's vision. "Evolve is one more way that Cabot is a leader in sustainability."

This multifaceted approach to more sustainable products and operations already is paying off for the Boston-based supplier, which has introduced two new products under the Evolve Sustainable Solutions' recovered category.

Vulcan 7H-C and Sterling SO-RC110 circular reinforcing carbons each leverage an ISCC Plus-certified mass balance approach. As a result, both products achieve ecological, social and GHG emissions savings as well as traceable sustainability standards, Cabot said.

Vulcan 7H-C is designed to help transform end-of-life tires into brand new products ranging from rubber-based tire treads and solid tires to conveyor belts and other industrial products that demand exceptional abrasion resistance.

Cabot noted that Vulcan 7H-C, made from ISCC Plus-certified tire pyrolysis oil derived from end-of-life tires, is designed for optimal dispersibility and extrusion characteristics for rubber compounds. It offers drop-in performance comparable to Vulcan 7H carbon black or ASTM N234 carbon black.

With Sterling SO-RC110, Cabot delivers on a product designed to perform comparably to ASTM N550. The semi-reinforcing material contains 10 percent recovered carbon material and utilizes Cabot's co-pelletization technology, while leaning into ISCC Plus certification standards.

Sterling SO-RC110 stands in the intersection of sustainability and performance, providing rubber compounds with high levels of quality, consistency and processability without compromising on performance. The product is ideal for passenger car and light truck tires—particularly sidewalls and tread compounds—as well as industrial rubber product applications such as hoses, construction profiles, engine mounts and belt inner layers.

And these two Cabot offerings are just a hint of the potential the Evolve platform promises, according to Aatif Misbah, Cabot vice president and general manager for Sustainable Solutions Reinforcement Materials segment.

"We are proud to launch our Evolve Sustainable Solutions platform as it will play a critical role in our sustainability journey as we look to develop new products and processes with a sustainability benefit and collaborate with our customers to deliver solutions that help address some of their most pressing sustainability challenges," Misbah said in a statement. "We have a number of projects in various stages of development actively underway with our customers and technology partners to develop a robust sustainable material pipeline, and I am excited for the future innovations they will deliver."

Deliver, Cabot said, because it's not just about being more sustainable as a company through its products and operations. It's about working to make the industries it serves and the planet it calls home a little more sustainable, too.

"For over 140 years, we have been a global leader and innovator in our industry—and we continue to evolve in our journey," Misbah said. "Our Evolve Sustainable Solutions platform will further our efforts to deliver innovative solutions that incorporate decarbonization and circular economy strategies to help us meet our sustainability goals and enable a more sustainable future."