Natural rubber is a strategic material critical to transportation, healthcare, defense, and advanced manufacturing. Today, the United States is nearly 100% dependent on imported Hevea-based natural rubber, creating economic and national security vulnerabilities. The NSF TARDISS Engineering Research Center is developing domestic alternatives using non- traditional crops such as rubber dandelion and guayule as scalable industrial feedstocks. Led by The Ohio State University in collaboration with core academic partners and industry stakeholders, the Center integrates plant science, engineering, supply chain development, techno-economic analysis, and workforce training to move sustainable rubber from research plots to commercial reality.

This session will explore:

• Non-traditional crops as industrial feedstocks
• Reducing dependency Hevea natural rubber
• What it takes to move from lab to supply chain