Conversion of waste rubber as an alternative rout to renewable fuel production

Abstract

Waste rubber (particularly scrap tires) generated worldwide exerts a detrimental influence on the world economy and the environment. Its fraction in municipal waste amounted to 2% by mass in 2000. By the end of 20 th century, rubber production was about 34 million tons world-wide. It is estimated that 20% of tires have to be recycled every year. Dumping and land filling of used tires were the most popular methods of utilization of them until not long ago. Other alternative methods that have been used for tire recycling such as retreating, reclaiming, incineration and grinding have also significant drawbacks and/or limitations but they influence the environment to a lesser extent than dumping. Pyrolysis or gasification of waste rubber may be the best way of its utilization. The results of the thermal degradation of waste rubber performed in a new type of tubular reactor with molten metal are presented in the paper. The melting and degradation processes were carried out in an apparatus at temperatures of 390-420°C. The problems encountered with the disintegration of wastes, the heat transfer from the wall to the particles, cooking at the walls of the reactor and mixing of the molten volume of wastes are significantly reduced. Two products: gaseous (below ~ 15 weight%) and liquid (over 40 weight%) product were obtained during the degradation of waste rubber. Both streams of products were analyzed by gas chromatography. The gaseous stream contained hydrocarbons from C2 to C 8 and the liquid product consisted of hydrocarbons C 4 to C 24 . Over 80 mol% of liquid hydrocarbons mixture was the fraction C 4 -C 10 . The obtained liquid product may be used in petrochemical and refinery industry or may be recycled for tire manufacturing.

Composites Containing Waste Materials

“…In the last years the rubber waste is applied in pavement of roads (Khalid & Artamendi, 2004), in the production of asphalt concrete mixtures (Tunsan, 2003;Zhan Ding et al, 2010), for production of activated carbons (Ko et al, 2004) but mostly as a fuel in cement production factories and kilns. Last few years waste rubber and mainly scrap tires were considered as one of the alternative energy sources (Stelmachowski & Słowiński, 2009. In addition grinded rubber waste and obtained granulate, fine rubber particles or rubber dust offer possibility for production of new composite materials with valuable properties -in (Aules, 2011;Sathiyamoorthy et al, 2011), for concretes with enhanced thermal insulation properties (Siddique& Naik, 2004;Yesilata et al, 2009), for sound insulation materials (Asdrubali, 2006) etc.…”

Zeolite catalytic pyrolysis of waste tire into fuel in gasoline hydrocarbon range

“…The rubber can also be made and synthetically, tire is an example of synthetic rubber made from nonbiodegradable materials such as stirene-butadiene polymers. The number of tires that have been produced currently creates environmental and economic issues due to dumping and landfilling of the waste tire in large quantities is the worst way [1]. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent the harmful environmental impacts associated with the waste tire.…”