DTI, Consortium to Fund Tyre Scrap Research funding matched by industry.

Plastics and rubber consultancy Rapra Technology is heading up a UK consortium of six companies who will conduct research into the devulcanisation of scrap tyre rubber. The two-year project is being funded by the Department of Trade and Industry as part of its Design and Manufacture of Sustainable Products programme, with more than £420,000 of direct financial assistance to be provided. The project partners will contribute another £420,000 between them.

In addition to Rapra, the partners in the consortium are PJH Partnership, Martins Rubber Company, BD Technical Polymer, J Allcock and Sons, and Charles Lawrence International. Each company will bring its own specialised expertise into the research. Work has started on establishing the optimum reaction conditions required within an autoclave system to produce a high quality, devulcanised rubber product.

The main research and development effort will then involve the successful transfer of this technology to an extruder-based system so as to enable the setting up of a continuous process. The resultant devulcanised product will then be evaluated for its potential as a material to be used in the manufacture of a variety of rubber products.

Finding new uses for tyre rubber has become an issue of heightened importance since the material was banned as a landfill substance within the EU on July 1 2006.