Author(s)

SULTAN MAJED AL-SALEM

Abstract

Annual production (and subsequently disposal) of tyres is taking place growing proportionally to the increase in population. Pyrolysis has proven to be a good thermos-chemical conversion method that can convert end of life tyres (ELTs) into valuable products namely solid char. In this work, experimental studies were carried out on end of life tyres (ELTs) reclaimed from lorry trucks which are known to be quite resilient to environmental exposure. The cracking took place between 500 and 800°C in a pyrolysis operation of fixed bed reactor type. The char recovered was extensively analysed in this study. Average particle size analysis showed that majority of the recovered char was >4 mm (36.2%) and the moisture content was somewhat low around 1 wt.% determined by thermogravimetry. On the other hand, the gross calorific value (GCV) was determined to be higher than 28 kJ·g⁻¹ pointing towards possibility of using this product as a source of energy.

Keywords

tyres, pyrolysis, diesel, energy, waste