Results

Tyrebirth has designed and implemented a "fully green" process, perfectly integrated into the logic of the circular economy, that not only avoids the production of pollutant by-products, but also turns the process of tyre disposal into an ecologically sustainable business.

The innovative microwave heating Tyrebirth process enables end-of-life tyres to be transformed into products for the market.

Produced materials

{module EN I Materiali prodotti}

Tyrebirth has developed a very high-efficiency new recycling process that allows the creation of high quality products through the disposal of end-of-life tyres.

All the products obtained through this process can be directly marketed and do not require any further treatment, except for specific packaging requests from the potential buyer.

The Tyrebirth process produces solid, liquid and gaseous products:

  1. Solid - carbon black - about 40% of the production, very high quality, dry, unpolluted and with quality characteristics 95% similar to the ones of virgin carbon black.
  2. Solid - harmonic steel - about 10% of the production. Product with a strong market demand.
  3. Liquid - Fuel Oil with low sulphur content (< 1%) - about 35% of the production. Product that can be used as marine diesel fuel.
  4. Gaseous - mixture of LPG gases and hydrogen - about 15% of the production, used to produce 70% of the plant’s Electricity requirements in cogeneration.

The steel is easily separated and delivered to a steelwork for reuse.

The carbon black can be directly reused to produce new tyres, composed for 40% of carbon black. 72% of the carbon black produced worldwide is used for the production of tyres Therefore this product has a high economic value. Carbon black is then also used in many other production processes: as a pigment for the production of plastics, as a pigment for textile printing, for printer toners, etc. The quality of the carbon black produced by the Tyrebirth process is very high, as widely confirmed by several laboratories and users. The use of Tyrebirth recycled carbon black (rCB) in compounds for the production of high-strength gaskets has shown levels of resistance to breakage equal to those obtained with virgin carbon black. All other rCBs from thermal pyrolysis gave significantly lower results.

The liquid product is a low sulphur marine oil and can be used in ships’ diesel engines, in thermal plants for the production of electricity and other specific installations using this type of fuel. It may also be sold to refineries which, after a hydro-desulphurization treatment, can use it as diesel fuel for other means of transport.

The gaseous product has a high calorific value because it contains only hydrogen and low boiling hydrocarbon, such as methane, ethane, propane, etc. The project envisages its use for the self-generation of electrical energy required by the plant itself. The energy balance varies according to the number of pyrolytic chambers, but the produced gas allows to cover not less than 70% of the energy needs.

Environmental advantages

The Tyrebirth plant is the first technological solution capable of recycling tyres in a circular economy.

The microwave heating Tyrebirth process is a "full green" process with zero environmental impact and has great ecological advantages over classical pyrolysis processes.

The process takes place in an inert environment and therefore there is no combustion. This guarantees a higher quality of the products obtained and, as mentioned, a lower environmental impact because there is no formation of by-products that would need to be disposed of. On the contrary, un the classic pyrolysis processes with combustion, according to the different techniques used for heating, there is the partial transformation of the tyres into carbon dioxide and the formation of a solid by-product to be disposed of in landfills or the formation of carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, which are highly polluting.

The planned plant carries out a technologically disruptive process, since up to now there has been no pyrolysis plant on an industrial scale for the treatment of ELTs with microwave heating.

It should be remembered that the disposal of tyres is a major environmental problem worldwide. In Europe alone, about 378 million tyres are replaced every year. These tyres, due to their nature, cannot be disposed of in landfills, but are shredded and used as powder or granules, or, in some countries, they are incinerated producing an important mass of toxic fumes.