Tytec Recycling announces world's first 'Green' OTR tire recycling solution

Tytec Recycling, a new company based in Perth, Western Australia, has announced the launch of the world's first environmentally friendly OTR tire recycling technology. According to Tytec, Edison Award-winning technology from Green Distillation Technologies Corporation (GDTC) finally provides mining and agricultural sectors a way to convert used tires into renewable energy sources. The innovative process consumes less energy and results in extremely low emissions and a safer work environment for system operators.

Tire recycling has always been difficult but it's been nearly impossible for off the road (OTR) tires used in mining and agriculture. Tytec Recycling says their newly developed, innovative solution can efficiently address the disposal of end-of-life OTR tires.

Using Edison Award-winning technology from Green Distillation Technologies Corporation (GDTC), Tytec Recycling offers a one-step process to convert OTR tires into high-quality steel, diesel oil and carbon.

"We've been working on a way to efficiently recycle OTR tires for the past nine years," says Brett Fennell, chairman of Tytec Recycling.

"Tytec Recycling is collaborating with GDTC to establish an environmentally friendly way to turn old earthmoving tires into a renewable energy source."

Currently, used OTR tires are buried under mining dumps or stacked in EPA-approved areas around mine sites.

"There are plenty of ways to break down tires but none of them are effective for OTR tires," says Fennell.

Most tire recycling requires up to six steps, including removing the steel beading from tires, cutting the tires into small pieces, then shredding or grinding the tire cuttings. The final step in the recycling preparation is to perform magnetic sorting to remove any remaining steel for crumb rubber sales. Crumb rubber is commonly used in athletic surfaces, playgrounds and equestrian footings.

In order to extract oil and carbon from old tires, an additional process is required using pyrolysis reactors.

The current recycling process is time-consuming, energy intensive and expensive. The larger the tire, the more costly, maintenance intensive and difficult each step becomes.

"The Destructive Distillation process used by Tytec Recycling allows a whole OTR tire to be recycled in a single step," says Fennell.

"We're using continuous heating technology that's incredibly energy efficient and results in extremely low emissions."

"Our reactors operate at a much lower temperature and pressure, providing the added advantage of being safer for system operators and reducing the wear and tear on the plant."

The result from the distillation process is reclaimed steel, carbon and diesel of saleable quality.

Tytec Recycling holds an exclusive global technology license for the Destructive Distillation process for OTR and agricultural tires, allowing them to provide the most environmentally friendly OTR tire recycling in the world. All emissions meet or exceed EPA, European Environment Agency (EEA) and the Australian Department of Environment Regulation (DER) standards and approvals.

"We're currently on track to begin OTR recycling in June 2016 and will open our purpose-built recycling center in Perth in January 2017, then Queensland soon after," Fennell says.

Tytec Recycling will attend MINExpo 2016 in Las Vegas this September to showcase the process and explore potential opportunities to expand the company to other locations around the globe.