Dandelion Rubber Could Replace Rare Sources

Aug. 5, 2008 -- Long the bane of lawn owners everywhere, the sunny-faced dandelion could revolutionize the rubber industry.

Scientists from Ohio State University's Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) and the Ohio BioProducts Innovation Center (OBIC) recently received a $3 million grant to design and build a processing plant that would turn sticky white dandelion root sap into quality rubber for less money than current methods, say the scientists.

"No matter how much chemistry we've applied, we still haven't been able to find an artificial substitute for natural rubber," said William Ravlin, a researcher involved in the project. "We're still harvesting [rubber] the same way they did 1,000 years ago; by cutting into the tree and letting the sap drip into containers. It's not a very efficient system."

Efficiency, according to the Ohio scientists, would be Midwestern farmers in air-conditioned tractors harvesting acres of yellow dandelions with the same machines used to pull tulip bulbs.

Nearby lawn owners shouldn't panic. The dandelions the researchers will use aren't the ones disgracing our nation's lawns, which go by the species name Taraxacum officinale.

Instead, the Ohio scientists will use the American dandelion's Uzbekistani cousin, Taraxacum kok-saghyz, (TKS), commonly called Russian dandelion. Not that the average person would notice; the two plants look nearly identical, except that TKS has slightly narrower leaves with different margins.

Still, it's what's inside that counts.

Anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of TKS' carrot-like root is rubber-ready. "And that's without modifying them with biotechnology or breeding," said Ravlin.