Bridgestone ups tyre recycling efforts

BRIDGESTONE has announced the successful implementation of a new form of tyre recycling this week that sees used car and truck tyres returned to rubber, oil, and other raw materials through a collaboration with partners, including Eneos Chemical.

Utilising a process known as pyrolysis, test units installed at the Bridgestone Innovation Park, Tokyo, have recovered carbon black and oil (butadiene) for reuse in the construction of synthetic rubber, and other applications.

Pyrolysis is a thermochemical process in which waste tyres are heated at a temperature of 450 degrees Celsius and is said to produce no carbon emissions.

The process allows tyre material to be separated from its metal belts (which are recycled) before being transformed into a gas. The gas is then cooled to form a liquid from which individual elements may be extracted for reuse.

It is hoped the initiative will help to reduce the 1.8 billion vehicle tyres disposed of globally each year. Estimates place the number of end-of-life tyres (ELTs) in landfill and stockpiles worldwide at over 4 billion.

Bridgestone says it hopes that its pyrolysis-based tyre recycling project, part of the company’s broader Evertire Initiative, will reach mass-production levels by the end of the decade.

“Research and development projects are part of an initiative for developing chemical product manufacturing technologies utilising used tyres promoted by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO) of Japan and has been adopted as part of NEDO’s Green Innovation Fund,” explained a Bridgestone spokesperson.

“Bridgestone is currently advancing verification tests on this project as part of a joint venture with the Eneos Corporation.

“The companies are moving forward with research and development on the technologies for refining tyre-derived oil obtained through precise pyrolysis to create butadiene and other chemical products for Eneos, which boasts crude oil refining technologies and chemical manufacturing technologies, and for Bridgestone, which possesses advanced rubber and polymer material design technologies.”

The technology is thought to provide a better recycling solution for ELTs which are currently utilised as ground crumb rubber or burnt as a substitute for coal in the production of steel.

A typical car tyre contains as many as 30 types of synthetic rubber (forming around 25 per cent of the unit’s overall construction), eight types of natural rubber (18 per cent), eight types of carbon black and silica (28 per cent), polyester and nylon (5 per cent), steel bead wire (11 per cent), and up to 40 different kinds of chemicals, waxes, oils and pigments (13 per cent).

Japan is one of the world’s leaders in tyre recycling technology and sits well ahead of countries –including Australia – which sends the majority of its ELTs to landfill.

The largest tyre dump on the planet, at Al Jahrah, Kuwait, is estimated to stockpile hundreds of millions of ELTs. In the 1980s and 90s, the country made a business from importing up to 259 million used tyres each year from Europe and the USA, eventually banning the practice in 2001.

*Data courtesy World Business Council for Sustainable Development.