End-of-Life Tyres (ELTs). update and review by B. Messenger, Editor of Waste Management World (WMW) magazine.

This article was my first choice to introduce readers to the Waste Management World magazine. Indeed it was not so long ago that local authorities here gave echo to their concern on the problems caused by used tyres and their ever increasing stock piles. The full text is given in the reference section. I have made a rapid selection and included all links for rapid reference and indepth lecture and action.

The original title in the Waste Management World magazine is:  TACKLING TYRE WASTE

With the rapidly growing number of vehicles around the world, the disposal of end-of-life tyres is a growing issue. Often simply dumped by the million to pose a serious environmental, health and fire risk, the technology to recover higher value materials and energy from waste tyres is moving forward.

The recovery of energy and materials from used tyres is big business. According to a report by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, in 2008 around one billion End-of-Life Tyres (ELTs) were being produced globally each year. A further four billion were estimated to be held in stockpiles and landfills. Around the world it is estimated that some 1.5 billion new tyres are produced annually.

Figures published by the U.S. Rubber Manufacturers Association estimate that the U.S. - the world's largest producer of ELTs - generated 291.8 million tyres in 2009. With an average weight of 33.4 pounds (15.1 kg) that equates to some 4.4 million tonnes. According to statistics published by the European Tyre & Rubber Manufacturers' Association (ETRMA), in 2010 Europe produced around 2.7 million tonnes of ELTs.

TRADITIONAL APPROACHES:
Using traditional recycling techniques, granulated rubber recovered from waste tyres can be used variously as an aggregate, in tiles, adhesives, asphalt, sports surfaces, and extruded rubber products, to name but a few of its uses. And in terms of energy recovery the natural rubber fraction of the tyre can be considered as a renewable energy source.


REASONS TO GET MORE TOP CHEMICAL ENGINEERS & MANAGERS INVOLVED. 

With so many ELTs being produced, as well as the huge stockpiles from the past, waste tyres pose many potential dangers. They can contaminate groundwater, harbour disease carrying mosquitoes in pooled water and they are not only flammable, but once ablaze, extremely difficult to extinguish.

Often the result of arson, fires at tyre dumps are not uncommon. In 1990 Hagersville, Ontario was the scene of one of the worst tyre fires in history. As a mechanised army of fire fighters struggled to gain control of the situation, for 17 days 14 million tyres packed onto the 11 acre site spewed toxic clouds of thick black smoke into the air.

According to the New York Times, in addition to the toxic fumes, around 158,000 gallons (600,000 litres) of oil was released by the melting rubber was collected from the site. Chemical pollutants, suspected to have been caused by the operation to extinguish the fire were also found in the aftermath of the blaze.

NB NY Times has many links on the subject of ELT

eg

 2009 Cooking Old Tires With Microwaves

2013  More Traction for Fuel-Efficient Tires

And with a little "lateral" thinking by this blog auther:

2013 Removing the Need to Refill Tires may save compressed air stations by fueling compressed air driven vehicles ( the latter motorisation not entirely condemmed by seminal work by David MacKay FRS: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air: Synopsis

In a separate incident an underground dumpsite in Wales,[UK] thought to contain around 9 million tyres, burned for an astonishing 15 years following its ignition in 1989.

HOPE ON HAND

High Value Alternatives

While the recovery of rubber, steel and energy from a potentially hazardous waste stream is certainly a big improvement over the not too distant past, increasingly a number of projects around the world are looking to ELTs as a potential source of much higher value materials.

One example of this is Dynamic Energy Alliance Corporation (DEAC), which recently relocated its headquarters from Memphis Tennessee to Dallas, Texas. The company has initiated the prototype phase of a project to validate its patent pending technologies to extract high value organic compounds from waste tyres. DEAC's process involves using pyrolysis to process ELTs with the production not only of energy, but of five marketable products – recycled carbon black, pyrolysis oil, fuel and extracts, a high BTU gas and steel.

The process the company is developing melds two technologies that it recently acquired licenses for, the Terpen Kraftig (TKF) Fractionator and Pyrolytic Augmentation.

The Pyrolytic Augmentation technology includes a series of specialised chemical compounds, which when combined within a pyrolysis plant are intended to enable the decomposition of the tyres to occur at lower temperatures - which would be a critical energy-saving benefit.

According to DEAC, a reactor technology included in the license allows it to recover additional high value organic compounds during tyre processing by changing the chemical reaction that's part of the de-vulcanization process used to convert the tyres' rubber into valuable products.

"The intellectual property includes a class of catalysts new to this industry but with exciting potential to improve the economics of waste tyre processing," explains Dr. Earl Beaver, chief technology officer of DEAC.

"The lower temperature enabled through the catalysts should allow for lower energy costs, lower maintenance costs and higher outputs of the most valuable liquid products and carbon black from tyre pyrolysis," he continues.

The TKF Fractionator process will capture the friable materials in the pyrolysis oil and purify them into high value organic compounds used in the fragrance, cosmetic and solvent industries - without disturbing the oil's hydrocarbon market value.

According to the company, the TKF processes, as adapted to its specifications, would produce up to 20 individual components at purity levels that are in high demand.

The process would consist of a series of unit operations functioning at a narrow range of temperatures, pressures, and volumes – which DEAC anticipates to yield the separation needed to maintain the purity and value of the products. Some of the 20 materials would be made in high purity for use as feedstock for downstream products, while others would be synthetic versions of natural products such as flavours, extracts and essential oils.

While the technology is still in the prototype phase, Charles R. Cronin, Jr., DEAC's chairman, is confident: "We believe these combined processes have the potential to produce more energy than the sum of the energy used to make the original tyre plus the energy expended to recover the products. These technologies may have the ability to transform the waste tyre industry from a landfill or rubber products business into a specialty chemical business."

Cronin added that the additional value will soon be validated in a life cycle analysis.(LCA)

The Tygre Project:

is an EU project and consortium involving a number of commercial and academic European organisations

PYReco

Based in Redcar in the North East of England, PYReco is planning a facility which will use pyrolysis to breakdown tyres into high tensile steel, carbon black, diesel oil and syngas without producing any waste.

Conclusions

Ben Messenger, Managing Editor of WMW Magazine concludes: 

"While there are still some concerns surrounding illegal dumping or exporting of ELTs, the high recovery rates both in the U.S. and Europe are encouraging. However, in common with other waste streams, the greatest environmental and economic benefits from the treatment of ELTs lie furthest up the waste hierarchy.

Given the expanding global vehicle base, and the consumable nature of tyres, prevention is probably unattainable. Indeed, for the foreseeable future the number of waste tyres being generated globally will continue to grow. And for passenger car tyres, reuse options, such as retreading, are limited.

While the use of tyres as TDF is certainly better than landfilling or stockpiling, there are many interesting projects on the horizon which offer the potential of recovering not only energy or low value materials, but a wide range of high value materials and energy.

Around the world such projects are numerous. Not all will be commercially successful, but there are simply too many to think that none will make it. The date may not yet have been set, but the way in which waste tyres are treated looks set for a revolution."

READ the full article of 22 April 2013 by Ben Messenger Managing Editor of Waste Management World magazine in WMW magazine (LINK)

Smart material-Super strong gecko insired adhesive gets unstuck is reusable and facilitates recycling components

This invention - innovation appears to have fairly wide spread application potential. As such may well suggest opportunities for the enterprising.

General Motors researchers, led by Tao Xie, a polymer scientist at the GM Research and Development Center in Warren, MI., have made an extremely strong adhesive that comes apart when heated. The adhesive is 10 times stickier than Velcro and the reusable gecko-inspired glues that many research groups have been trying to perfect.


The polymers in the glue bond to each other within minutes when they are initially heated. Thus, when two pieces of the adhesive materials are heated, they stick together strongly, but they come apart easily when heated again.

It is in the class of new materials known as Shape memory materials-here a polymer.

Current Performance:
The researchers were able to attach and pull apart the polymers twice before losing one-third of the adhesive strength (that's still 6.6 times stronger than other adhesives? ) So how many cycles are possible?

Recycling components:

Mark Geoghegan, who studies reversible adhesives at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., says that strong, switchable adhesives could make it easier to recycle computers and electronics, if these adhesives were used to glue them together. "Taking complicated structures apart for reuse at the end of life of the original device is not trivial if their original production involved welding," he says.

The glue could find use in any application requiring a strong but alterable bond, such as furniture, toys, and buildings. Geoghegan envisions offices or hotel rooms that could be tailored to accommodate a handicapped person. Or, he suggests, "Imagine a U2 tour, where sets are assembled and disassembled on a daily basis. It might be easier to use a high-strength reversible adhesive than to use bolts."

Some questions for applications and recycling: Reliabilty? Ratio of the amount of glue per component (esp for very small and expensive ones as in electronics). Glue removal when nessessary -by heating or chemical or mechanical abrasion?) Saftey standards for toys...?

This Smart Mat sounds well worth following-up.

Fuller details on MIT's Technology Review Newsletter

REF: en référence à : Technology Review: Super Velcro (on afficher sur) Google Sidewiki)

Is trash the solution to tackling climate change? or Where there's muck there's money?

"Where there's muck there's money" is an old adage in the UK.

Could the following report "Could trash be solution to tackling climate change?" be another twist to the the money game?

Quote:
"SINGAPORE -- September 2009 -- Converting the trash that fills the world's landfills into biofuel may be the answer to both the growing energy crisis and to tackling carbon emissions, claim scientists in Singapore and Switzerland. New research published in Global Change Biology: Bioenergy, reveals how replacing gasoline with biofuel from processed waste could cut global carbon emissions by 80%."

The team used the United Nation's Human Development Index to estimate the generation of waste in 173 countries. This data was then coupled to the Earthtrends database to estimate the amount of gasoline consumed in those same countries.

The team found that 82.93 billion litres of cellulosic ethanol could be produced from the world's landfill waste and that by substituting gasoline with the resulting biofuel, global carbon emissions could be cut by figures ranging from 29.2% to 86.1% for every unit of energy produced.

"If this technology continues to improve and mature these numbers are certain to increase," concluded co-author Dr. Lian Pin Koh from ETH Zürich. "This could make cellulosic ethanol an important component of our renewable energy future."

COMMENT STARTER:

How can burning gas for transportation reduce CO2 emissions substantially?
Lets get down to some of our own calculations.
Remember only every Big counts says Prof.David Mackay in Without Hot Air> not every little bit! (30 to 80% reductions) Is it 30% or is it 80% reduction.

Then waste must be disposed of in a healthy manner, and energy must be captured. Current manovers in such energy, water and waste management (EDF and Veolia here in France) may give a hint to likely directions in environmental interests, to the tune of 4_5 Million Euros in only one PDG's salary, that's strategic thinking. Will the planet and her citizens be better-off or "Debter-off?

More in (and from)
1. ScienceBlog

2. PHYSORG
September 29th, 2009

"Converting the trash that fills the world's landfills into biofuel may be the answer to both the growing energy crisis and to tackling carbon emissions, claim scientists in Singapore and Switzerland. New research published in Global Change Biology: Bioenergy, reveals how replacing gasoline with biofuel from processed waste could cut global carbon emissions by 80%."

3. Biofuels from urban waste

4. World of Renewables

Some facts on waste - innovation required!

Some Facts from Trendinfluence's Insight Blog:

-Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!

-Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year!

-Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.

-Americans throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam coffee cups every year.

-In 2006, Americans drank about 167 bottles of water each but only recycled an average of 23 percent. That leaves 38 billion water bottles in landfills.

-Bottled water costs between $1 and $4 per gallon, and 90 percent of the cost is in the bottle, lid and label.

-According to the Beverage Marketing Corp, the average American consumed 1.6 gallons of bottled water in 1976. In 2006 that number jumped to 28.3 gallons.

-It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to manufacture a year’s supply of bottled water. That’s enough oil to fuel 100,000 cars.

-Eight out of 10 plastic water bottles become landfill waste.

-In 2007 we spent $16 billion on bottled water. That’s more than we spent on iPods or movie tickets.

-Plastic bottles can take up to 1000 years before they begin to decompose once buried.

-If everyone in NYC gave up water bottles for one week, they would save 24 million bottles from being landfilled. One month on the same plan would save 112 million bottles, and one year would save 1.328 billion bottles from going into the landfill.

-For every ton of paper recycled, we save 4,100 kilowatts of electricity for three hours. [12.300KWh saved]

- Half of all polyester carpet made in the United States is made from

recycled plastic (PET) and

- Aluminum cans produced in the United States can contain at least 50% recycled content.

Source
Industrial Designer gets a Shock

Tyre Recycling

I have just added the The European Tyre Recycling Association (ETRA) website to my recycling list on my left hand side menu bar for easy reference. Road transportation tyres and alternatives are quite obviously a Pan-European issue.

ETRA claims to be the only European organisation devoted exclusively to tyre and rubber recycling. Founded on 23 September 1994 with 19 members in 5 countries. Today, ETRA has ±250 members in 47 countries including the 25 EU Member States.ETRA membership reflects both the public and private sectors involved in the environmentally safe disposition of post-consumer tyres.

The site (1) contains news items from 2004 to date with conference archives still under construction.

Here are a few figures to play around with in our LCA-Life Cycle Assessments.

"Estimates are that 250,000,000 used tyres are accumulated each year in the countries of the 15 EU. This could supply 45% of European virgin rubber uptake. Only 24% of used tyres is recycled, mostly in low demanding, low price products, that yield low economical profit, stopping R and D investment (most of companies along the recycled rubber supply chain are SMEs). In consequence, the main use of tyres is as fuel substituting one environmental problem for another due to emissions."(2)

This link together with the original research project CRIOSINTER-project link were brought to my attention by the "Research EU" magazine N° 58 Dec08-Jan09.

Here are a few quotes taken from Research EU upon which all car and truck users, but most especially the industrial tyre manufacturers are cordially invited meditate upon.

Business as usual?

"Tyre manufacturers prefer incineration"! According to ETRA's co-founder Valerie Shulman, "The problem is
that recycled rubber is a direct competitor to their own products!" and she further criticises " When tyre manufacturers sign contracts committing them to the incineration path for anything up to 25years they are jeopardizing the future of a sustainable society that is reliant on the emergence of a new recycling-based economic sector"[energy efficient, low carbon emissions path, based on a Full Life Cycle Assessment methodology let me add.]

Sources:
1. The European Tyre Recycling Association (ETRA)

2. CRIOSINTER-project reference