The EU-PEARLS Consortium links stakeholders in the EU and elsewhere in the development, exploitation and sustainable use of guayule and Russian dandelion, aiming to establish complete new value creation chains for natural rubber and latex from these plants.
|
Natural rubber is a unique biopolymer that is essential to industry, medicine, personal care, and transportation, especially because it cannot be replaced by synthetic – petroleum – based materials in many of these applications. Its major source now is the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis.
|
| Increased worldwide demand for natural rubber and latex, a fungal disease potentially capable of destroying rubber tree plantations in South-East Asia, and allergies to Hevea latex, are important drivers to develop alternative – domestic sources of latex and natural rubber, the two most promising of which are the North-American shrub Parthenium argentatum (guayule) and Taraxacum koksaghyz (Russian dandelion). |
 |
|
|