PYReco featured in March 2009 Petroleum Review

Planning a cup of char on Teesside

Pyreco Featured in Petroleum Review

December’s issue of Petroleum Review profiled UTD Research a Welsh company who recycles tyres back into their original ingredients – oil, steel and carbon black. Another UK based company, PYReco is due to scale-up the process even further with plans to open a recycling plant on Teesside next year, reports Louise Smith.

According to statistics from the European Union, over 250mn tyre casings are discarded each year, a figure which is expected to rise by 4% every year, Like UTD Research, PYReco provides a ‘closed loop’ pyrolysis process – a process used to convert complex materials into useful or less harmful substances – as an alternative and environmentally sound disposal method for used tyres. In November 2008, the Luton based company announced plans to build Europe’s first tyre recycling plant based around pyrolysis technology.

The £80mn, 17-acre plant to be built at South Tees Eco Park near Middlesbrough is thought to be the largest of its kind in the world and is set to be the launch pad for a European-wide project. When it opens in 2010, the facility will be fully WID (Waste Incineration Directive) compliant plant and capable of processing and recycling 7.5mn tyres (60,000) per year. The resultant products – carbon black and steel will be sold back to the industry while oil and non-condensable gases will be used to generate electricity. Other rubber materials arising from motor manufacture – such as belts, hoses, windscreen surrounds, wipers, floor mats and mud flaps – could also be recycled at the plant.

According to PYReco, the facility has the potential to displace the use of 500,000 barrels or oil and generate 70 GWh of clean electricity each year with production on Teesside expected to double within two years of its scheduled opening in 2010.

The link-up two years ago between PYReco and Metso Minerals, one of the three primary business areas of Finnish engineering company Metso Corporation, has led to the recent announcement of the construction of the Tees Valley plant. It represents the culmination of a 10-year R&D programme by Metso’s pyrolysis processing pilot plant facility in Pennsylvania, US. Like UTD Research, Metso Minerals has developed a patented process for degrading tyres using externally applied heat, and turning them into useful products.

The main part of the plant is the central heat chamber, a slowly rotating cylinder or calciner which as a series of burners along the outside to provide the heat needed for the process. The shredded tyres enter via an auger and are dropped into an oxygen purge before being dropped into the calciner itself. The gas and oil are drawn off as they vapourise, leaving the char and the steel ready for further processing. As the process takes place within a sealed chamber, there are no noxious emissions.

Waste not

According to PYReco, an average weight passenger car tyre can be reduced to more than 2.5kg or valuable carbon black, over 19,000 Btu of gas, 1 kg of steel and 2 litres of oil. The greatest savings of all, the company says, will come from the recycling of left over carbon black and steel. Carbon black represents an $8.8bn global market with widespread used in many industrial processes, including tyres, rubber and plastic products, printing inks and coatings. It is also one of the top 50 industrial chemicals manufactured world-wide, based on annual tonnage.
Conventional manufacture of carbon black uses heavy oils as feedstock and the process is estimated to consume around 2.2mn tonnes of oil for every mn tonnes produced – so recycling Europe’s tyres could save 6mn barrels of oil and prevent the creation of around 700,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions a year, PYReco claims.

PYReco has confirmed that the carbon black has been tested and conforms to the grade N550/N660 as currently used in the market place. As a finished product, the physical appearance of PYReco’s carbon black is that of a finely ground black powder, which is then pelletised for easy transport.

Steel Profits

A similar displacement effect applies to the manufacture of steel. BioRegional Reclaimed, funded by the Business Reuse Fund through-DEFRA, claims that recycled steel has an environmental footprint of less than 5% of hen it is conventionally produced. It is estimated that the UK plant will recover around 22 tonnes of steel each day. This process will emit just 5% of carbon, 95% less than the cost of producing virgin steel.

The pyrolysis process will also produce an oil product that compares favourably with grade number two oil as well as a syngas with a calorific value nearly double that of natural gas and similar to that of propane. Due to the relatively uneconomic process of de-sulphurising smaller quantities of oil, it is intended in phase one to use the oil along with the gas for steam-turbine driven electricity generation for the home market. When it becomes fully operational, the PYReco’s plant will be consistently delivering 8 MWh of electricity per year – with scope for this to increase considerably, the company says.

‘We need to change our perception of pyrolysis. For too long the technology has been regarded as one that promised much but delivered little. Those days are behind us and PYReco’s plant will demonstrate just how effective pyrolysis will become at solving this and other waste related issues,’ says PYReco’s Managing Director Noel Harasyn. The company currently awaits planning permission from the Redcard and Cleveland District Council.