Recovered Carbon Black: An Environmentally Friendly Alternative
What is Recovered Carbon Black?
Recovered carbon black, also known as recarbonized carbon black or Recovered carbon black, is produced from the pyrolysis or combustion of end-of-life tires that cannot be retreaded. During the reclaiming process, the rubber from worn-out tires is broken down at high temperatures of about 1000°C in plants specially designed for recycling tires. This process yields reincorporated carbon black particles that can be further processed for use.
The Production Process of Recovered carbon black
The production of recovered carbon black from waste tires typically follows these main steps:
– Collection and Shredding: End-of-life tires are first collected from various sources like landfills, tire retailers etc. and any metal is removed. The tires are then shredded into smaller pieces for easier handling.
– Pyrolysis: The shredded tire rubber is fed into a rotating kiln where it is heated to high temperatures in the absence of oxygen. This causes the rubber to break down into its basic chemical components including oil, gas and carbon black.
– Refining: The carbon black is separated and cleaned of any contaminants through processes like degassing, filtration and centrifugal separation. Additional refinement steps may include jet milling to achieve the desired particle size.
– Product certification: The recovered carbon black is tested to ensure it meets industry specifications for properties like structure, surface area and purity before being released for commercial use.
Potential Applications of Recovered carbon black
With characteristics comparable to virgin carbon black, recovered carbon black has various potential industrial applications:
– Tire production: Recovered carbon black can be used in the manufacture of both new and re-tread vehicle tires as a filler and reinforcing agent, partially replacing more expensive virgin carbon black. Major tire manufacturers have verified its viability.
– Hoses and Belts: The material properties of Recovered carbon black make it suitable for incorporating into rubber hoses, conveyor belts and other molded rubber goods that require an reinforcing additive.
– Plastics: Some plastics like polyethylene and polypropylene can use Recovered carbon black as a black pigment and strengthening additive in products like plastic lumber, pipes, wire jacketing and furniture.
– Coatings and Paints: Recovered carbon black finds applications in industrial and automotive coatings as well as architectural and specialty paints due to its UV resistance, conductivity and ability to improve mechanical properties.
– Other Rubber Products: Other miscellaneous rubber articles that can benefit from Recovered carbon black incorporation include seals, gaskets, mats, molded parts and rubber roofing membranes.
Benefits of Using Recovered Carbon Black
The use of recovered carbon black produced from waste tires brings several environmental and economic benefits:
– Resource Conservation: It promotes the conservation of valuable natural resources by recovering carbon black content from discarded tires rather than producing more energy-intensive virgin carbon black.
– Waste Reduction: Utilizing Recovered carbon black facilitates reducing the number of end-of-life tires being sent to landfills or incinerated, diverting several millions of tires annually from waste streams.
– Carbon Footprint Savings: The pyrolysis process emits fewer greenhouse gases compared to the traditional furnace black production method. This lowers the overall carbon footprint of carbon black.
– Cost Savings: With no mining or refining required, the manufacturing cost of Recovered carbon black is lower than that of virgin carbon black. Using it brings cost-saving opportunities to various sectors.
– Sustainability: By converting a post-consumer waste product into a commercially viable material, recovered carbon black supports the circular economy and encourages more sustainable industrial practices.
Challenges for Widespread Adoption
While the development of recovered carbon black holds great potential for sustainability goals, a few challenges still need to be addressed for its more widespread adoption:
– Consistency in Quality: Ensuring consistent quality parameters between batches can give product manufacturers confidence in Recovered carbon black as a reliable input material.
– Scale of Production: Larger-scale production capacities are required to fulfill the carbon black needs of major customer industries continuously.
– Cost Competitiveness: With some additional processing costs involved, Recovered carbon black needs to be produced and delivered to buyers at competitive market prices.
– Certification Standards: Uniform industry specifications and certification standards for different applications can simplify qualification of Recovered carbon black sources for customers.
– Collection Logistics: An efficient tire collection infrastructure is important to facilitate steady supply of feedstock to Recovered carbon black plants.
Conclusion
By tackling challenges through innovation and economies of scale, recovered carbon black promises to develop into a considerably greener and more sustainable alternative to virgin carbon black in the long run. Its utilization presents tangible environmental benefits as well as new business prospects for participants across the value chain from tire collection to product manufacturing industries. With continued research and support, the outlook for future growth of Recovered carbon black applications looks quite encouraging.
*Note:
1. Source: Coherent Market Insights, Public sources, Desk research
2. We have leveraged AI tools to mine information and compile it
