Chloramine devulcanization: Setting new standards in carbon black and rubber recovery from end-of-life tires
by Patrick Kroeger, Niravkumar Kosamia, Michael LaRoche and Ian Byberg, Arduro
A constantly developing automotive industry and the growing number of vehicles generate massive tire demand. The worldwide demand is expected to reach more than 3 billion units by 2025, with an indicated rise of 4% and an estimated sales forecast of $258 billion. Further management and recycling of end-of-life tires (ELTs) is still a critical challenge globally which needs to be overcome, since it produces severe land, water and air pollution. The development of low cost, environmentally benign and industrial scale tire recycling methods is gaining more attention, garnering much ongoing research to address the problem. However, due to the complex and heterogeneous three-dimensional structure of the tire, the development of efficient, industrial scale devulcanization technologies that can electively recover the main components of the tire, such as carbon black and rubber, is rare.