News: Tire Recycling & Pyrolysis

Equine Air, a product developed after Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) teamed up with Flexiroc, was used for a trial on 550 square meters of Pakenham Racing Club Tynong race track in 2018. The findings of the experiment with the trail were positive, and the riders admitted the benefits of the new surfacing. To manufacture the product, developers used more than 3,000 tires – this equals 27 tons of recycled rubber. It has an innovative design enabling the product to be used for difficult ground conditions. Moreover, it helps the surface to drain quickly following rain.

Scrap tires are constantly being delivered abroad from Australia, however the sustainable recycling practices are being neglected, Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) claimed. Moreover, the organization’s Chief Executive Officer Lina Goodman noted citing fresh audit that Australian recyclers transport used tires in such a way that it becomes a cause for concern. For instance, tires were sold to companies that practice unsustainable tire incineration, or store them in an unsafe way.

Pyrolyx AG – an international tire pyrolysis operator – has now become an official supplier of recovered carbon black (rCB) of Continental AG as the two parties agreed to sign a 5-year contract ruling that about 15,000 metric tons of the product will be delivered every year. Nevertheless, Pyrolyx stated that the scope of the deal on the supplies might be increased if demand escalates.

Using electronic identification chips in new tires has been found to be an efficient practice that tire producers can undertake. The verdict about its technical feasibility was delivered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). However, the group also noted that the technology has to be standardized, and this means, the industry will have to elaborate on it, as well as new regulations will be required.

Australian scrap tire processor Green Distillation Technologies may commission a for-profit tire pyrolysis plant in Toowoomba, Southern Queensland as it is anticipating green light from its Development Application office. According to the company, it has already had a customer for its oil that recovered from waste tires at Toowoomba facility with the help of the firm’s original system. This comes after GDT’s received a Queensland Government grant to its Southern Oil of Gladstone that provides necessary funding to develop refinery plant and conduct checks and operational tests of fuel oil extracted from tires – to do that, the developers use a Scania V8 test engine.

After almost two years since the automotive giant Michelin has acquired Lehigh, a company specializing in recycled tire-derived micronized rubber powder (MRP) production, the majority of the its customers are still happy with the service, Kedar Murthy, vice president of Lehigh, said while giving a speech at the Tire Technology Expo 2019 last month. Following the acquisition, Lehigh preserved its name and it managed to keep trust of its customers, says Murthy.

A new research and development initiative is being worked on by a number of companies that seek recycling scrap tires into valuable products with the help of graphene. The ambitious two-year project led by three firms, Haydale, ARTIS and Trelleborg Antivibration Solutions, receives support of The Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) which is a direct partner of Innovative UK.

A special committee on recovered carbon black (rCB) at ASTM International has introduced its first standard defining conditions for the rCB industry. The standard comes at a time when carbon black is still viewed as somewhat new recycled merchandise that the expanding commercial tire and plastics sectors are using, one of the ASTM members pointed out.

From the very beginning of this year and up until now, RecyBEM has provided authorization to twenty scrap tire collectors in the Netherlands. Their certification will be valid for three years. To attain the certification, the colleting companies had to prove that they were meeting the standards demanded by RecyBEM and could control fire hazards – this is a must for all companies that consider pursuing the authorization in scrap tire collection.