Recycled tires: overlooked as a fuel source?

Oil from recycled tires has been overlooked as a potential fuel source, yet it is the most reliable and easiest to refine of all, according to oil expert Tim Rose of Southern Oil.

Rose said that “the future potential of this source of feedstock is immense, in fact preferable to other bio-oils from plants such as corn or algae plus it reduces dependence on imported fuel and it is an example of converting an environmental waste problem into a valuable raw material.”

Note: In March, Queensland state premier Anna Palaszczuk announced that a AUD $16 million advanced biofuels pilot plant would be built at Southern Oil Refining’s Yarwun plant at Gladstone — in a partnership with Licella. They described the project as “a giant step towards securing a large-scale biofuels industry in Queensland.”

Southern Oil has operated a refinery at Wagga Wagga since 2001 that processes 38 per cent of Australia’s collected waste lube oil and is in the process of building an advanced $16 million biofuels plant at Gladstone, Queensland.

Green Distillation Technologies Chief Executive Craig Dunn said that an oversize tyre from a mining dump truck that weighs 3.5 tonnes will yield 1500 litres of oil, 1.5 tonnes of carbon, as well as the steel reinforcing which will go back to the tyre manufacturer for reuse.

GDT has developed world-first Australian technology that will recycle end-of-life car and truck tyres into oil, carbon and steel using a destructive distillation process. They were Australia’s first ever nominee in the Edison Awards, the world’s top award for innovation last year where they won a bronze medal.

“The Hyder Report in 2013-14 estimated that there are 155,000 tonnes of OTR end-of-life tyres of various sizes generated in Australia each year of which 79.4 per cent are left on site as there are no means of recycling them.

“We are currently building a test plant to process these tyres as although our recycling technology is proven” said Rose. “we have to work out the logistics of how to handle these extra-large ‘off the road’ tyres (OTRs) used by heavy duty mining dump trucks, large agricultural tractors and road making equipment.  Our plant is already recycling end of life 10 kg car tyres that each yield 4kg of carbon, 1.5kg of steel and 4 litres of oil while the 70kg truck tyre provides 28 kg of carbon, 11 kg of steel and 28 litres of oil.

“We have operated this pilot plant in Warren since 2009 and the upgrade to full production will see it capable of processing 19,000 tonnes, or a mix of 658,000 car and truck tyres per year. This represents approximately 3% of the 24 million end-of-life tyres that are generated in Australia each year,” Dunn added..