Purified oils

Nokian Tyres is the world’s first tyre manufacturer to have fully eliminated high-aromatic (HA) oils in its production. The purified oils used by Nokian Tyres contain less polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) than required in the pertinent EU directive.
 
HA oils are the by-products of oil refining. The tyre industry began using them in tyre production in the 1950s. The oils, used as plasticising agents in the production of treads, facilitated the mixing of different raw materials and the refining of rubber compounds.
 
HA oils are classified as carcinogens because they contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
 
In tyre production, HA oils can be replaced with non-labelled oils, that is, low-aromatic (LA) oils, which contain less than three per cent of PAH compounds. Studies show that this content of PAH compounds is low enough to render them harmless.
 
Clean, low-aromatic oils are produced by extraction from high-aromatic oils. This procedure removes nearly all PAHs from oil, converting them into low-aromatic compounds.