Belgian company raises funds for waste tire pyrolysis plant

Liege, Belgium – Belgian company Risorce has completed a €12.5 million round of financing for the construction of an end-of-life tires (ELT) recycling plant in the country.

Standing for ‘renewable, innovative solutions towards recycling & circular economy’, Risorce aims to build a waste tire pyrolysis in Liege to eventually process nearly 2.5 million ELTs per year.

The first phase, to be funded by the €12.5 million, will include one processing unit, to be built by next year, followed by five subsequent units to be fully operational by 2025, said Risorce 13 Sept.

Once fully operational, the site will process 18 kilotonnes per annum (ktpa) of tire granulates per year, which Risorce said is equivalent to 2.4 million tires a year.

The figure represents nearly half of the 5 million ELTs collected in Belgium every year, the company added.

In Belgium, the majority of the tires are shredded and the rubber parts are separated from the textile and metal parts.

Founded in 2022, RISORCE will deploy a pyrolysis process that will mainly produce recovered oil from the shredded rubber, to be sold as a raw material to European petrochemical companies.

Other products of the process, including recovered carbon black and gas, will be used in industrial processes or for the plant’s operating needs, Risorce noted.

While meeting the local need for waste recovery, Risorce is contributing to the circular economy of tires, said Bernard van den Wouwer, founder and CEO of the company.

According to the CEO, this is the first tire pyrolysis unit, operating on an industrial scale, “in Belgium or neighbouring countries”.

The funds raised by Risorce were from the fund raising fund Noshaq, tire recycling fund GREEN.er as well as financial institutions ING and Wallonie Entreprendre.

The project is expected to create 20 local jobs, once completed.