The Leading Journal for the Tyre Recycling Sector

The Leading Journal for the Tyre Recycling Sector

Sustainable Carbon Black from TPO

In late November, the Blackcycle project held an event at the Michelin technology centre in Ladoux, France. The aim of the workshop was to discuss where the Blackcycle project stood in the aims for a circular economy.

Pyrum Innovations TPO for Sustainable Carbon Black

Blackcycle said that it had produced the world’s first sustainable carbon blacks (sCB) for tyre use, in a carbon black furnace reactor using oils derived from an end-of-life tyre pyrolysis process.

German company Pyrum Innovations – provided the pyrolysis oil for the project which was evaluated in the innovation department at Orion Engineered Carbons. The conclusion was that by replacing a fossil-fuel-based carbon black with carbon black made from oil derived from ELT pyrolysis, the properties of a rubber compound would not change.

This is a slight change in direction for the market as up till now most pyrolysis projects focused on recovered Carbon Black from their process as the potential feedstock, with alternative uses for the oil being sought.

By utilising pyrolysis oil rather than virgin oil, the resultant Carbon Black does not contain the impurities that a recovered Carbon Black might contain. This, Blackcycle suggests, means that the Carbon Black recovered in this way can be used in all applications.

The consortium believes sustainable CBs are a drop-in solution that will not require rubber compound formulations or process parameters to be adjusted, such as those used in the mixing, moulding, and curing processes.

BlackCycle is a European Union’s Horizon 2020-funded project.