Klean CEO speaking on recovered carbon black at European Carbon Black Summit

Jesse Klinkhamer, CEO of Vancouver, Canada-based Klean Industries Inc will be a featured speaker at the European Carbon Black Summit, which runs from 22 to 23 June in Frankfurt.

Following on from the inaugural Recovered Carbon Black Conference in Amsterdam in November 2021, the second European Carbon Black Summit will “further reinforce the significant changes taking place in both the Carbon Black and tyre manufacturing industry as witnessed at the 2021 Recovered Carbon Black Conference and illustrated by the joint presentation of two of the leading tyre manufacturers, Michelin and Bridgestone”. Both tyre manufacturers presented a consolidated perspective regarding their ambition to increase the use of Recovered Carbon Black material in new tyres and the desire for material circularity throughout the tyre manufacturing supply chain.

Since the tyre industry is the single largest consumer of virgin Carbon Black, the potential demand for Recovered Carbon Black is enormous. A number of industry experts, including several tyre manufacturers, are of the opinion that if only a small amount (such as 10%) of the virgin Carbon Black was substituted with Recovered Carbon Black that the demand for Recovered Carbon Black will exceed 1.5 million tonnes annually, and that’s just in new tyre manufacturing applications, not including plastics and other rubber product manufacturing. It should be noted that in new tyre applications, replacing virgin Carbon Black with 10 per cent Recovered Carbon Black has the potential to offset nearly 3 million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, according to Klean.

“It is an exciting time for Klean Industries as a commercial-scale technology leader in the production of high-quality Recovered Carbon Black, and it’s refreshing to finally see a dynamic shift taking place in both the new tyre and Carbon Black manufacturing sector. This positive change will generate critical momentum given the tyre industry consumes 65 per cent of the global virgin Carbon Black production. By integrating Recovered Carbon Black into new tyres, rubber products, and plastics there is a significant opportunity to use a drop-in product that has the added benefit of not only reducing costs but also reducing CO2 emissions. From a resource recovery perspective, it only makes sense that new rubber products, specifically new tyres, should contain renewable and sustainable materials derived from scrap tyres. The tyre manufacturers are in the perfect position to be a driving force for sustainability and a poster child for the circular economy we all want and need”, said Jesse Klinkamer, CEO of Klean Industries.

Klinkhamer’s presentation will focus on how to bring transparency to the Recovered Carbon Black manufacturing and the overlap between supply chains in respect to virgin Carbon Black production and recycling; in the session of: Understanding the Role of Recovered Carbon Black in the Rubber and Tire Industry.

Other topics included in the session are:

• Increasing the Use of Sustainable Materials in Rubber,
• Making Fully Recycled Tyres: Type of materials and methods we need to achieve this goal,
• Determining Challenges and Opportunities of Recovered Carbon Black to become a major material supplier to the tyre manufacturing industry.

Klean has a number of pyrolysis projects in North America and Europe that are under development which are dedicated to the production of ASTM D36 Recovered Carbon Black used in new tyre manufacturing and a high quality recovered oil that contains 35-40 per cent biomass that is used for the production in new virgin-based Carbon Blacks.