China's Tire Pollution May Rise Despite EV Growth
A new study reveals that tire-derived chemical pollution, specifically 6PPD, has increased sevenfold in China over the last two decades. Researchers warn that this environmental issue persists regardless of vehicle electrification, with rural roads contributing the majority of emissions.
Why it matters
It highlights an overlooked environmental challenge where electric vehicle adoption does not eliminate traffic-related pollution, necessitating new regulatory strategies for tire manufacturing and road maintenance.
As electric vehicles become more common, exhaust emissions may decline, but another form of traffic pollution is receiving increasing attention: chemicals released as tires wear down.
A new study has provided the first national-scale source-to-receptor assessment of tire-derived 6PPD pollution in China, tracing emissions from roads through soil, water, air, and sediment and projecting how those emissions could change through 2060.
6PPD, short for N-(1,3-dimethylbutyl)-N -phenyl-p-phenylenediamine, is widely added to tires to protect rubber from degradation caused by ozone and oxidation. As tires wear against road surfaces, however, 6PPD can be released into the environment along with tire wear particles. It can also form transformation products such as 6PPD-quinone, which has raised concern because of its toxicity to aquatic organisms.
The researchers estimated emissions across 333 prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2020 and connected those emissions to 58 secondary river basins using a multimedia environmental fate model.
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