Continental plans to increase share of recycled material in its tires

The tire manufacturer Continental, which is headquartered in Hanover in Germany, has expanded its partnership with Pyrum Innovations, a specialist in the area of pyrolysis technology. The aim of the new collaboration, which will run for a period of ten years, is to increase the share of carbon black recovered from end-of-life tires, further details of which can be found in a press release. Carbon black is an important component in the production of tires and other rubber products. This raw material can be extracted from old tires by means of a pyrolysis process. By using the soot that is returned to the cycle, fossil raw materials can be saved and CO2 emissions in the production of soot can be reduced. Depending on the tire model, the proportion of soot in the rubber mixture stands at between 15 and 20 percent. Continental now plans to use more than 40 percent recycled materials in tire manufacturing by 2030.

“Recycled raw materials are becoming increasingly important in our tire production”, as Jorge Almeida, Head of Sustainability Continental Tires, comments in the press release. “We need to move from an ‘end-of-life’ to an ‘end-of-use’ tire concept. This means that the end of a tire’s intended use phase must become the beginning of a new opportunity. Together with Pyrum, we are developing highly efficient processes to recycle as many components and materials as possible from an end-of-use tire back into our production cycle”, he adds. ce/ww