Zeppelin Systems launches Sustainable Tire Alliance

After hinting at it for a few weeks, Friedrichshafen-based plant engineering firm Zeppelin Systems is revealing the purpose of a number of recent partnerships. Zeppellin Systems is “striving to shape a sustainable future for the tyre industry and make even better use of existing potential” via the “Zeppelin Sustainable Tire Alliance”. The latest addition to the alliance is Polish company ReOil, which came on board as a new partner on 13 March 2023.

Each of Zeppelin Systems’ partners contributes its individual, innovative, technical and technological expertise along the tire production value and process chain. For example, French company Regom sorts old tyres using artificial intelligence, while Italian technology group RubberJet & Vertech uses high-pressure water jet technology to break down old tyres into their individual components with little environmental impact. Polish Group Rezykl recycles old tyres into high-quality secondary raw materials and develops stabilizers for asphalt mixes from textile fibres. German company Entex devulcanizes rubber using a planetary roller extruder, while Nano Technologies refines raw recovered carbon black.

“From sustainable material recycling to raw material recycling and cleaning and refinement of recycled materials, to extraction of high-quality secondary raw materials, the Zeppelin Sustainable Tire Alliance combines all forms of expertise in this field under one umbrella,” Guido Veit, Vice President Sales for Polyolefins, Rubber and Silos at Zeppelin Systems GmbH explained.

“In conjunction with Zeppelin Systems’ excellent turnkey plant engineering solutions, this creates the perfect symbiosis for the sustainable tyre production of both today and the future,” Dr. Markus Vöge, CEO of Zeppelin Systems GmbH added.

Poland-based ReOil operates in the area of raw material recycling and breaks down used tyres into raw materials such as steel, oil and recovered carbon black (rCB) by means of continuous pyrolysis. Founded in 2010, the company built Europe’s largest plant for recycling old used tyres using pyrolysis in 2015 (in the Polish city of Bukowno). Since then, the facility has been recycling around 20,000 tons of used tyres every year, with another plant that will triple capacity to around 60,000 tons of used tires per year currently in the planning phase. Another special thing about ReOil is that the company holds a number of important certifications such as ISCC EU, ISCC PLUS, ISO 14001 and ISO 9001–proving the highly economical and environmentally friendly nature of the pyrolysis process used by ReOil.

The concept behind the Zeppelin Sustainable Tire Alliance To support the circular economy in the tyre production sector, the quantity of high-quality tyre recyclates available for the production of new tyres needs to be dramatically increased.