15 Apr Shredding of end-of-life tyres (ELTs): a “black gold mine” ready for being exploited

“Problems can’t be solved by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them” (Albert Einstein).
The 2014 report by the ETRMA (European Tyre and Rubber Manufactures’ Association Sustainable Development Foundation) shows that only considering consumer, light truck, truck, motorcycle and agriculture tyres, in 2012 Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain had been able to generate 3,42 Mt of End-of-Life tyres.
If in 1996 these countries were used to landfill almost the 50% of the material, while only 20% was used for RDF production and 10% as material recover, 15 years later the first figure has dropped to 5%, the second and the third increased up to 37% and 39%.
An American report says that, on a worldwide base, the figure to be considered including OTR and mining tyres is 1 Bt per year.

What to do with such material? Can we call them a black gold mine?
In addition the undoubted benefits to the environment (recovering of space in landfills, no soil pollution, energy cost savings), treating the ELTs means to use them for producing different recycled tyre materials (RTMs), such as:
– Refure Derived Fuel (RDF) and Specific Recovered Fuel (SRF) to be used  in cement plants, steelmakers and energy plants
– rubbercrate (alternative concrete mixed with rubber) and rubberized asphalt
– anti-shock flooring for child parks
– outdoor and indoor sports and leasure flooring production
– animal farms anti-shock flooring
– urban decoration (parking areas, road and parking furniture, benches, paths, barriers, etc)

Each one of these applications requires a proper size of the throughput: from 100x100mm chips for RDF to <1mm metal and fiberfree rubber crumb for urban decoration and antishock floorings.
Different sizes also mean different plant set-ups: from a simple set of conveyor(s) and hydraulic 2 shaft and 3 shaft shredder(s) if we only want to get a size of 100x100mm/50x50mm or 20x20mm to a more complex set-up (involving more than three shredding steps) in order to get <1mm rubber crumbs.

SatrindTech has a quite large and proved history as a shredders manufacturer of 2 and 3 shafts hydraulic shredders and treatment lines for car- and truck- ELTs, either stationary and/or on a mobile unit. This video shows an example.
The demand for shredding OTR tyres has recently increased worldwide, especially from those countries where the mining business has a crucial role in their economies (South Africa, Chile, Peru, Colombia just for making some examples).

SatrindTech is able to offer comprehensive shredding solutions that could now include also OTR tyres.
Just to make an example, a typical plant for obtaining 50x50mm chips with a throughput of 7 t/h is composed by feeding and discharging conveyor belts, a high torque hydraulic shredder and a disc screen for the selection of the material with the suitable size. In order to process OTR tyres in the same plant (previously used only for car and truck tyres), SatrindTech can now offer a debeader and a shear, which will be used before the first step of the shredding process. These machines are necessary for removing the beads from the truck and from the OTR tyres and for the size reduction of the last ones so they can be processed with our existing line.
Removing the beads from the tyres means to cut the maintenance costs on the equipment that follow in the line on the long term.

For any additional information about our customized solutions for ELTs treatment, please feel free to email us at sales@satrindtech.comor to call our Sales staff at +39 02 9037 6683.

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