Waste tire pyrolysis 'gaining traction among investors worldwide'

Copenhagen – End-of-life tires have made the leap from "environmental headache to a source of in-demand, even “cool” products," the recent annual meeting of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) heard.

At the ‘tire & rubber committee session’ of the BIR meeting on 28 May, committee chairman Max Craipeau of China-based Greencore Resources said pyrolysis "is starting to become a very attractive industry." 

As well as Europe, pyrolysis is gaining traction in the US as well as other countries globally and "is no longer the poor relation of the recycling industry,” Craipeau noted at the Copenhagen meeting.

According to consultant Robert Weibold, pyrolysis has quickly evolved from having “a very bad reputation” to becoming “a real solution.” 

He presented figures showing annual global production of tire pyrolysis oil (TPO), untreated char, and milled and pelletised recovered carbon black (rCB) currently stands at respectively, 1.7 million tonnes, 1.2 million tonnes and 180,000 tonnes from a tire feedstock of 4.5 million tonnes.

Over the next three to five years, annual rCB production is expected to surpass 500,000 tonnes, said the head of Austria-based consultancy Robert Weibold GmbH.

Demand for rCB, according to Weibold, is “growing sharply” and the price of pelletised rCB has gradually decoupled from that of virgin carbon black.

Demand pressure is also decoupling TPO from crude oil-based prices in “more and more regions,” according to Weibold.

While a “vast majority” of TPO is still being used as fuel, the Austrian consultant said focus was slowly shifting to closed-loop applications.

Europe’s annual ELT pyrolysis capacity is currently only 62,400 tonnes of ELTs - equivalent to 1.4% of total global scrap tire arisings, continued Weibold.

However, he said, Europe was ‘rapidly emerging’ as an ELT pyrolysis hub, with the processing rate on track to reach 672 kilotonnes per annum - or 11% of the estimated world figure.