Recycling technology of tire rubber

Material recycling technology for automotive tire rubber waste was developed by the continuous devulcanization method. The deodorization during the recycling process has become possible by the newly developed method. The devulcanized rubber obtained by these methods from tire rubber waste, generated from both the manufacturing products and scrap tires, shows excellent mechanical properties applicable to the new tire rubber compounds in engineering practice. Furthermore, it was confirmed by actual road tests that a test truck tire containing 10 wt % of the devulcanized rubber in the tread might exhibit tread wear behavior almost equal to that for the standard type with the new rubber compound. (C) 2002 Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan, Inc. and Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.