A technologically advanced and eco-compatible activity for Pirelli in Brazil. In the factory at Meleiro, a city in the south of the country noted for its cultivation of rice, we are developing and using a process for the extraction of silica, essential to tyre production, from rice chaff. The discovery was reported by one of the world’s most prestigious weekly publication, The Economist, in an article devoted to Pirelli in which it also pointed out the environmental benefits derived from the use of a substance such as rice chaff.
Instead of being thrown away, the silica made from chaff is used to reduce tyres’ rolling resistance and increase the vehicle’s efficiency; in addition, the rice’s husks are subsequently used to provide the energy needed for the extraction process.
Southern Brazil offers ideal environmental characteristics for the cultivation of rice, but Pirelli does not exclude the possibility of also exporting this virtuous model of collaboration with the local community, which has enabled us to grow in Brazil in the area of research, to other countries in which it operates.