Used Tire Pyrolysis: An Efficient Method Extracting Energy from Used Tires

Vehicle tires will only end up in landfills and objects made ​​of rubber is causing serious environmental problems. Every year around the world more than one billion vehicle tires discarded. Tire production in Indonesia also increased from year to year. Along with that, then the waste tires are not used in the environment is increasing. Most people prefer to throw it away than to recycle more useful results. Experts often confused with the environmental problems caused by tires that are not easily biodegradable material.

Conditions of use of energy is still dominated by fossil fuels should be reduced slowly and gradually replaced by renewable energy. According to Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Darwin Zahedy Saleh , oil in Indonesia is expected to expire within the next 23 years and can not be updated. Petroleum is not used to meet energy needs but also as a raw material of chemical industry products such as plastics and tires.  

Abundant amount of used tires that can be recycled by thermal decomposition using pyrolysis to produce a primary product of petroleum that can be used as a source of energy or raw materials of many chemical industries. Other products in the form of carbon black will be widely used for coloring tires, syngas also for the application of energy or production of electricity and steel wire as raw material for metal casting.

Processing of used tires do not just simply solve the waste problem but also be economically advantageous. Great added value will be obtained when the product processing scrap tires have high economic value, a commodity that is always needed by communities and sustainable. The use of continuous pyrolysis technology is the right choice for the processing of scrap tires to produce petroleum products (crude oil), black carbon, syngas and steel wire, all of which have added great value and is the raw material of various industries.

Every 60 tonnes of scrap tires are processed in the pyrolysis can produce:
-18 000 liters of oil
-18 000 kg of carbon black
-6600 Kg of steel wire
-17,400 Kg syngas (synthetic gas)

Scrap tires are initially reduced size in about 1 inch and then go into the pyrolysis unit as the unit of production. A carbon black product, syngas, and crude oil will come out on the pyrolysis unit outlet. Syngas can be directly used for electricity generation using gas engine powerplant (gas generator), the capacity of 6o tons / day of INPUT will produce about 1 MW of electricity. While carbon black products of the pyrolysis unit will be passed in a magnetic separator for the separation of steel wire.

For many industries that are currently utilizing scrap tires as a fuel by burning it directly, so it is better to use the pyrolysis unit to extract the energy content in scrap tires. Direct combustion of scrap tires will cause a major environmental pollution and harm. It also does not provide much added value. Continuous pyrolysis will be able to extract the energy content of scrap tires effectively and efficiently, such as syngas produced from pyrolysis can be used as an energy source, because in that place no longer require an additional power supply, or use the crude oil produced for the same purpose .

The concept of Zero Waste MSW Processing Using Continous Pyrolysis Technology and Biogas System

How did your perspective when looking at the mounting garbage, whether it be problems or challenges that invite the opportunity?

It's no secret that the waste problem has become a common problem in many places, especially in big cities. The challenge is how to make waste processing unit that zero waste and be profitable? Integration of continuous pyrolysis technology and biogas system is the answer on this. With pyrolysis, organic waste, plastics, and tires will produce specific products with high economic value. When the processing of organic waste are the main products produced charcoal, biooil, and syngas. All of them can be used for energy applications. While the plastic is processed then the primary product is syn crude oil whose quality as petroleum. Processing of scrap tires with pyrolysis will produce syn crude oil like in plastic pyrolysis processing, carbon black, syngas and steel wire.

With the sale of the products of pyrolysis, so the activity of MSW processing is not only dependent on the tipping fee, but the majority of the profits derived from the sale of the pyrolysis products. In addition there are two thermal process beside pyrolysis which is used on MSW processing, there are gasification and incineration, but pyrolysis has many advantages over both methods, more details please click here.

In the processing of organic waste with this continuous pyrolysis technology, before the organic waste enter  into the pyrolysis unit, the moisture content of the organic waste need to be reduced to about 10% by using a mechanical device. In this process will produce leachate that rich with organic matter so that the potential for biogas system in anaerobic digestion reactor, so that gas can be produced for power generation. While the byproducts of residual water will be cleaner because the organic components decompose during the formation of biogas, thus safely discharged to the environment and the solid residue will be used as high-quality compost.