The TyGRe Project

Innovation: Tyre Recycling 2010

Wednesday to Friday 17-19 March 2010

Crowne Plaza Europa Hotel, Brussels

TyGRe Project was presented at the 17th ETRA Conference in March 2010

The 17th Annual ETRA Conference on Tyre Recycling, held at the Crowne Plaza Conference Center in Brussels, was an important event for TyGRe project:  from Wednesday 17th through Friday 19th March, the Conference hosted many events involving TyGRe peoples. Over 120 delegates participated, representing all sectors of the tyre recycling market: industries and public and private sectors.

A Scientific Meeting of TyGRe project was hosted by the Conference with the scope to verify the status of the project in compliance with the workplan.

The Project Officer of the European Commission, Wojciech Klimek, accepted the invitation to attend the meeting and was present. The settlement of the Board was presented by Maurizio Coronidi from ENEA, leader of the project management workpackage.

All the Partners were well represented and had the possibility to show the advancement of their work into the Project. A preliminary prototype plant flow sheet was presented and discussed for improvements. At the end of the discussions and the presentations, the raised questions were examined in detailed to address the future work.

During the Conference, government officials at Commission, national and local levels as well as researchers from industry and academia, contributed to the discussions. TyGRe partners could meet ETRA members participating to planned session and special events such as “Innovation in tyre recycling” and “Pyrolysis forum”.

“Info Day”

Entitled ‘Innovation in tyre recycling’, the program focused on the vast advances that have been made in the development of sophisticated recycled materials and their use in traditional applications in substitution of virgin resources. In this frame a dissemination event focused on TyGRe was organized. The “Info day” mainly oriented toward the recycler stakeholders was held on 18th March: TyGRe project was presented to the audience during the “Eco-Innovation: Imagination and Creativity” panel. In this session, the discussion was focused on the problems affecting waste tyre market and, particularly, the limits to be implemented of conventional thermal treatments on waste tyre.

Sergio Galvagno, Project Coordinator, and Valerie Shulman, General Secretary of ETRA, provided an overview on the research and the impacts introduced by the project on this sector.

The main goal is to produce a high added value material starting from a low cost silica source (like quartz sand) and waste tyre. The hope for the future is that this ceramic material could introduce new source of Silicon Carbide (SiC) for a variety of applications.

Project partners presented the technologies involved into the process under development and highlighted the innovative aspects of the project, including the fact that the output being developed is a very high-added-value product, produced in an environmentally sound manner with fractional energy reliance compared to the model.  

Concerning the gasification process, Hakan Karatas from TUBITAK (the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) explained the technologies available for the gasification of the materials and the clean-up of the gas output and presented the energy production options that could allow to recover the energy to be used in different activities later the project. The optimization of the gas separation processes by membrane was described by Thomas Harlacher from RWTH (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen - Germany).

Krista Hald from COMETAS (Copenhagen Membrane Technology A/S - Denmark) explained the importance of sintered silicon carbide powders insisting on the most important characteristics for industry uses. The importance of testing the different ceramic products during the project was emphasized.

Finally Patrizia Buttol from ENEA presented the main aspect considered in SAT (sustainable assessment of the technologies) and tools such as LCAs, LCC, SLCA (social life cycle assessment) to examine the sustainability of each facet of the project.

Once the technical presentations were completed, ETRA (European Tyre Recycling Association) discussed the potential markets for the material produced and how to make other industries and public enlarged to its potential advantages.

An interesting discussion was developed involving speakers and attendances concerning the scope of the project and the expected improvements for the market.

Pyrolysis forum

The “Pyrolysis Forum” is a special session dedicated to waste tyre thermal treatments and related aspects. The forum, held on Friday 19th March, is a regular date of the ETRA Conference for a long time now. Considering the many years experience in this frame, the forum is a time for discussion and comparisons among industries and academics working in this field.

TyGRe project was presented in this session.

Sabrina Portofino performed a project overview, focusing the attention on the aspects related to waste tyre steam gasification.