Experimental and theoretical investigation on pyrolysis of various sections of the waste tire and its components

Waste tires are well known to have appropriate disposal or reprocessing problems under environmental and economically sustainable conditions. The pyrolysis represents valid modern technology to process waste tires to recover fuels and carbon black. However, the detailed degradation mechanism and kinetics of waste tire pyrolysis have not been thoroughly studied. In this work, pyrolysis of tread, sidewall and, innerliner of a waste tire of a light motor vehicle is thermogravimetrically investigated. The degradation profiles of said sections of waste tire predicted using various kinetic models. Kinetic models constituting a single reaction to four parallel reactions are considered for the stated purpose. The results reveal that the degradation profiles of tire sections are different from that of the whole tire. Among the kinetic models considered, the four reactions model predicts degradation for tread and sidewall sections with a fit percentage of over 98% with experimental data. The average activation energy of tread and sidewall obtained at this fit are 80.82 kJ mol-1 and 79.99 kJ mol-1, respectively. In comparison, the degradation behavior of the innerliner section is very well predicted using a three reactions model with a fit percentage of over 99% to experimental data. The average activation energy (E) estimated for highest fit is 53.78 kJ mol-1 for innerliner section.(c) 2021 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study investigates the pyrolysis of different parts of waste tires using thermogravimetric analysis and proposes several kinetic models to predict the degradation characteristics. The results show that the degradation profiles of tire sections differ from the whole tire and require different models for prediction.