A new way to break down old tires into material for new ones

Graduate student Sijia Zheng pictured with Michael Brook. Photo by: Georgia Kirkos.

Article Highlights

A team of chemists at McMaster has discovered an innovative way to break down and dissolve the rubber used in automobile tires, a process which could lead to new recycling methods that have so far proven to be expensive, difficult and largely inefficient
The method, outlined in the journal Green Chemistry, addresses the enormous environmental burden posed by tires, approximately 3 billion of which were manufactured and purchased worldwide in 2019
Tires are a typical example of a product prepared for a single use from a non-renewable resource. While some are used as fuel in the cement industry or broken down into crumbs to use as fillers in asphalt, cement or artificial turf, there is no convenient method for recovering the petroleum-based polymers from which they are made so they cannot be easily reused, effectively repurposed, or recycled
In the paper, researchers describe a process to efficiently break down the polymeric oils by breaking the sulfur-to-sulfur bond. Brook likens the structure to a piece of fishnet
“We have found a way to cut all the horizontal lines so instead of having a net, you now have a large number of ropes, which can be isolated and reprocessed much more easily,” he says
The new method could help to eliminate and prevent the major environmental concerns and dangers posed by stockpiled tires
While promising, researchers caution that the new method has some limitations because it is expensive for industrial applications
“We’re working on it, but this is the first major step. This process closes the loop on automotive rubber, allowing old tires to be converted into new products,” says Brook

The Complete Story: McMaster chemists find new way to break down old tires into material for new ones

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