News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

A Dutch company Black Bear is ready to advance its tire recycling process transforming tires into carbon black, and it managed to receive additional funding of €5 million; the recent growth capital follows prior funding of €11million. The most recent sum became available thanks to a venture capital company from Belgium Capricorn Venture Partners and Particon that provides investment to innovators in tech. Following this investment, the overall financing has managed to reach €16 million.

Big Tyre Recycling Corporation (BTRC) – an innovator and ultra-high-pressure (UHP) water jetting technology supplier from Belgium – reports about its breakthroughs in technology for recycling extra-large mining and truck tires (up to R63) well known as off-the-road (OTR) tires. The company is currently looking for investors and strategic partners for construction and maintenance of OTR tire recycling units worldwide. Currently, OTR tire recycling remains a pressing issue in both developed and developing countries all around the world. Every year hundreds of thousands tons of OTR tires are stockpiled around the world while recycling rates remain negligibly small. BTRC asserts it has found not just commercially viable, but a highly-profitable solution to tackle the global issue.

According to the recent press release of Eldan Recycling, advances in the market of electrical components enabled Eldan to develop a new shredder – frequency drive Eldan Super Chopper – with a significantly lower power consumption and a remarkably lower price than previous models. The company reports that for more than 20 years the Eldan Super Chopper has been a popular heavy-duty pre-chopper in the tire recycling industry.

Plymouth’s huge tire factory operated by Bandvulc Group has demonstrated impressive expansion since it was purchased by Continental Tyre Group in 2017. Currently, it handles a quarter of UK’s market, which is staggering 180,000 retreaded tires annually. Thus, Bandvulc Group has gradually gained a status of the UK’s key fleet management service provider that also functions as a truck tire retreader.

China’s Changzhou’s Bohai New Area was chosen by local company Lunte Petrochemical as a site for a new waste tire recycling plant with the annual capacity of over 238 kilotonnes. The announcement was made by Chinese authorities in October. The facility’s commissioning has become possible due to Lunte’s phase one plan that saw investment of USD 289.2 million (2 billion CNY).

Given durability and non-biodegradable nature of tires, these products pose an incredible challenge for waste managers all over the world, including Oman. However, a student from Caledonian College of Engineering (CCE) in Oman, Fatma Sulaiman Nasser al Kindi, has come up with an innovative solution in her country when she suggested how waste tires could be used in the construction industry. She, same as other researchers, pinpointed that scrap tires pose a threat to the environment on a global level. When Fatma noticed that tires were normally dumped in the streets and junkyards in Oman polluting the environment, she was puzzled with a question how tires containing a lot of precious material could be used in a productive way. Later, she decided that tire recycling enabling development of concrete aggregate out of scrap tires was the answer.

A new tire recycling line has been commissioned and installed in Poland by American tire recycling equipment manufacturer CM Shredders. The company says it is the second CM line in Europe intended for tire pyrolysis / gasification industry. CM Shredders (formerly Columbus McKinnon) revealed that its system is capable of manufacturing rubber free of wire, which may be used as a feedstock in tire pyrolysis. In addition, the equipment produces purified steel wire from tires.

Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) has found in its recent study that Australia annually deals with over 55 million waste tires, with 30 percent of the amount being heavy truck and mining tires. One of sustainable methods to extend life of the precious material is recycling after which rubber can be used in municipal paving projects. Some of the country’s roads are already composed of asphalt mixes and rubber powder spray-seals that contain recycled rubber; their usage is being promoted by the TSA and the industry. In addition, TSA helps create rubberized permeable pavements, which result in promotion of more advanced methods to manage complex water systems in urban areas.

Tire recycling businesses focused on rubber mulch, crumb rubber and rubber powder production now have a chance to make their operations even more green and sustainable. Indeed, production chain of every tire recycling business includes packaging – so called “big bags” made of polypropylene (PP). While recyclers help clean up hazardous tire stockpiles and reuse thousands tons of high-quality rubber in industrial applications, why shouldn’t they deliver their recycled goods using recycled packaging? This article describes recent breakthroughs in designing high-quality sustainable packaging – big bags – made by an Austrian company KSM Solutions.