Gas from the Pyrolysis of Scrap Tires in a Fluidized Bed Reactor

Abstract

A fluidized sand bed reactor was used to study the production of gases from scrap tires at four nominal temperatures (ranging from 600 to 900 °C). Yields of 17 pyrolysis products (methane, ethane, ethylene, propane, propylene, acetylene, butane, butylene, 1,3-butadiene, pentane, benzene, toluene, xylenes + styrene, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide) were analyzed as a function of the operating conditions. The results are compared with the data obtained by pyrolysis of tires in a Pyroprobe 1000, where secondary tar cracking is small. Correlations between the products analyzed with those of methane are discussed.

Product distribution obtained in the pyrolysis of tyres in a conical spouted bed reactor

“…2 agree with those obtained in the literature with other technologies that reach short residence times for the gas in the reactor, as is the case of fluidised bed reactors (Kaminsky and Sinn, 1980;Conesa et al, 1996) and vacuum reactors (Benallal et al, 1995). The attainment of high yields of primary products at low temperature is a consequence of the efficient gas-solid heat transfer, which has already been proven when the conical spouted bed has been used in the pyrolysis of biomass and of waste plastics (Aguado et al, 2002(Aguado et al, , 2003.…”

“…Several technologies have been developed for the pyrolysis of scrap tyres. Rotary kilns (Fortuna et al, 1997;Li et al, 2004), ablative reactors (Helleur et al, 2001), fixed bed reactors (Cunliffe and Williams, 1998;Leung et al, 2002) and fluidised bed reactors (Kaminsky and Sinn, 1980;Conesa et al, 1996) have been used under atmospheric pressure. The bubbling fluidised bed reactor (Hamburg Fluidized Bed Process of University of Hamburg) has been studied at different scales, with isothermality being its main advantage over the fixed bed reactor, as it allows for operating at a specific temperature in the 500.800 • C range, with the aim of obtaining an optimum composition for the gas and liquid (Kaminsky and Mennerich, 2001).…”

Pyrolysis of tyres: A comparison of the results from a fixed-bed laboratory reactor and a pilot plant (rotatory reactor)

“…The results are given in Table 3, and, especially for the pilot plant [9], who give an average value for gases of this type of 40 MJ/m 3 . The sample with the highest calorific power is the laboratory one, followed by PP1, with PP2 last, a distribution perhaps is linked to the greater proportion of hydrocarbons with more than one carbon atom (therefore with greater calorific power) of the less cracked samples [10], which follow the order LR, PP1 and PP2. These results suggest that the residence time of the tyre shreds in the pilot plant reactor could be reduced, which would improve the energy balance of the process, as long as there were no significant differences in the solid fraction.…”

Rubber tire thermal decomposition in a used oil environment

“…One of the ways of recycling organic wastes such as used tires is the energetic revalorization by combustion, although another way is its pyrolysis in order to obtain chemicals [1]. Tires are mostly composed of different rubbers, such as natural rubber (NR), butile rubber (BR) or styrenebutadiene rubber (SBR), as well as mineral oils and carbon black.…”

“…The products formed during pyrolysis [1] and partial oxygen supply [5] were also studied. In this last paper, special interest was placed in the pollutant formation and control.…”