Tire recycling processes and sustainability applications

Recycling Sidebar: Tire-to-Tire Recycling

The adherence of all researchers to principles of Good Research Practice is crucial to the scientific process. Such principles have been defined and formulated by various scientific bodies. Good Research Practice by definition is not very specific since the details vary from field to field. Good Research Practice is made up of a set of principles that provides a structure within which research is carried out. It is designed, carried out, observed, documented, reported and archived. In order for research projects to be good ones they need:

A sharp focus that is supported by a clear research question or proposal that is used for developing them. Projects should be directed towards results which can be communicated to and used by other people

Convincing arrangements for accessing and building upon what is known already about the area to be studied. Projects need to demonstrate that they will make a systematic and collective contribution to what is already known

Clear research methods need to be use (Criteria for Research, 2010).

The scientific method is a procedure that is used for experimentation that explores observations and answer questions. Scientists use it in order to investigate for cause and effect relationships in nature. They devise an experiment so that one things changes because something else varies in an expected way. The steps of the scientific method include:

Asking a question

Doing background research

Constructing a hypothesis

Testing the hypothesis by experimentation

Analyzing the data and drawing conclusions

Communicating the results to others (Steps of the Scientific Method, 2010).

In the article Recycling Sidebar: Tire-to-Tire Recycling the author looks at the idea of how devulcanization can add value to rubber shred. The number of scrap tires that are made North America is overwhelming. According to a report published in November 2009 by the U.S. EPA, consumers along with industry in the United States produced almost 300 million scrap tires in 2008. This was thought to be about five million tonnes of non-biodegradable waste rubber. The EPA says that approximately a billion tires are disposed of every year in landfills around the world. The good thing is that the recycling of scrap tires has gone up tremendously over the last decade. Government agencies in many countries have partnered with industry to raise consciousness and find new valuable and commercially-viable ways to utilize recycled scrap tires. New markets keep on developing recycled rubber, generating what is now a multi-billion dollar industry.

Many tire makers add in recycled rubber into their tires and retreads. Until just recently, they could only combine one to two per cent recycled rubber powder in without taking the risk of having performance safety issues or even failure. This was for the reason that powdered rubber lost necessary properties that are natural in new rubber, such as suppleness and pliability. These are properties that are vital for tire performance and safety. In this study devulcanization is studied to see if this process can solve the problem of reduced performance safety. This satisfied the first step in doing good research in that the researchers determined a question to be looked at.

The next step in the research process is to do background research. This is a step that was not done in this research and which presents a flaw in the procedural design of this study. It is always important to see what else has been done and looked at in the area in which you are studying so that you can make sure that you are not repeating others mistakes. It is also import to validate the research that one is doing in reference to what others have already done.

The next step is to construct a hypothesis. In this study the hypothesis was that Magnum D'Or Resources, an innovative tire recycling company, has developed next-generation processing technologies and techniques that enable the production of custom multi-application recycled rubber powder compounds that have the elasticity and resilience of natural virgin rubber. Magnum's closed-loop recycling technology eliminates the greenhouse gases produced by old-fashioned recycling processes, removing the steel mesh and fiber from the scrap tires and converting them into purified high-grade tire crumb. The company has collaborated with Sekhar Research Innovations that has granted it exclusive North American rights to a unique activation and devulcanization process that imparts to recycled rubber the same elasticity and resilience as virgin rubber and allows for the creation of new custom compounds.

The next step in the research process is to test the hypotheses. In this study independent test results validate that Magnum SRI's rubber-activated compounds possess all the properties of natural rubber compounds, meeting all technical and performance parameters needed for value-added applications. Magnum's entry into the market comes at a time when rubber manufacturers have been squeezed between recessionary forces and higher fuel and operating costs, hurting margins and driving up product prices.

The data was analyzed and the conclusion that was draw was that now, using custom formulated re-activated powder compounds, new truck tire, retread and motorcycle tire manufacturers can blend in an unprecedented proportion of recycled content of between eight and 25 per cent, depending on the performance specifications of the application. This considerable usage of recycled content results in substantial savings in raw material costs for manufacturers without any concession in performance, properties and safety.

The results of this study were communicated in this article which represents the last step in the research process. The conclusion that the researcher drew and communicated was that the devulcanization process could indeed add value to shredded rubber and make it into a useful product. Based upon the evidence from the research that the rubber-activated compounds possessed all the properties of natural rubber compounds, and met all technical and performance parameters needed for value-added applications this was a warranted conclusion to be drawn.

Basically this was a good research study except for a few minor faults. It lacked any background research in to what else is going on in the field. This made it hard to validate the results of this study because there wasn't anything else presented to look at the results against. There was also a lack of discussion about what exactly the testing consisted of. This made it difficult to not only determine the validity of the testing but also its reliability as well.