A little over a year after first selecting a site near Germany’s border with Luxembourg for its second wholly owned waste tyre pyrolysis facility, Pyrum Innovations AG has progressed plans further by submitting approval documents relevant to Germany’s Federal Immission Control Act (BImSchG).
For the first time, Pyrum Innovations is operating all three production lines at its main site in Dillingen/Saar, Germany. The thermolysis waste tyre recycling specialist reports that the new TAD 2 and TAD 3 lines have been running alongside the original TAD 1 line since last weekend and will operate in unison for a week before TAD 1 is closed down for scheduled maintenance.
There’s no doubt that tyre makers are finding sustainable raw materials increasingly attractive, but the road to monetising such a product can be long and frustrating. Pyrum Innovations has been actively developing its thermolysis technology for 16 years now, and during this time attracted the attention and favour of major tyre industry players. This hasn’t prevented the Dillingen, Germany-based company from posting another net loss in the first nine months of 2024.
Following an audit, Continental has given Pyrum Innovations unlimited delivery approval for recovered carbon black (rCB) supplied from its pyrolysis plant in Dillingen/Saar, Germany. Pyrum CEO Pascal Klein views this authorisation as “the cornerstone for a significant increase in sales next year.”
End-of-life tyre recycler Pyrum Innovations AG has published its Q1 2024 interim consolidated report. Sales revenues in the first three months of 2024 amounted to €336,000, around 54 per cent higher than the same period last year. The company also reports that expansion of its main plant in Dillingen, Germany is progressing as planned.
Pyrolysis-based recycling specialist Pyrum Innovations AG (Pyrum) has released its annual and consolidated financial statements for the 2023 financial year, along with an update on the company’s progress in supply of recovered end-of-life tyre products to the tyre industry. CEO Pascal Klein commented that another eventful year lies behind the company.
A consulting agreement with Swedish firm GreenTech Recycling Tires AB gives Pyrum Innovations AG its first point of entry into the Scandinavian market. On the proviso that GreenTech’s financing is fully secured, Pyrum will invest up to 3 million euros in a joint venture SPV (special purpose vehicle) to build a pyrolysis recycling plant capable of processing 20,000 tonnes of end-of-life tyres annually.
Pyrum Innovations views the commissioning of reactor 2 (TAD 2) at its main Dillingen/Saar site in Germany as a “new milestone,” and test runs of TAD 2 have resulted in the production of around 60,000 litres of pyrolysis oil, with the first delivery of 24,000 litres earmarked for BASF. Rigorous testing and sampling confirm that the oil meets all required specifications, paving the way for future deliveries.
Pyrum Innovations confirms it will begin construction of its second wholly owned end-of-life tyre recycling facility in the second half of this year. At a meeting on 6 February, the local council of Perl in Germany’s Saarland region overwhelmingly approved the project. Pyrum has taken initial steps by ordering the first components for the plant and has recently established a subsidiary dedicated to its operation, Pyrum GreenFactory II GmbH.
Pyrum Innovations is working to bring two new reactors into operation at its main Dillingen plant in Germany’s Saarland, trebling the facility’s capacity. It began a second test run of the first of these, reactor 2 (TAD 2), on 30 January and reports “initial successes” towards the reactor’s commissioning.
At the start of January, Pyrum Innovations established a wholly owned subsidiary to operate its second pyrolysis tyre recycling plant. This ‘Pyrum GreenFactory II GmbH’ facility is located in Perl-Besch on the Moselle, in Germany’s Saarland region, and will enter service by the end of 2025. Pyrum has modelled the plant on its main site in nearby Dillingen/Saar, and when operational it will double the company’s recycling capacity to 40,000 tonnes of used tyres per annum. Pyrum says it already starting to order certain plant components – those with “notoriously long delivery times” – in the first quarter of 2024.
A scientific study conducted by researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute highlights the CO2 savings the pyrolysis process offers over conventional means of tyre recycling. Titled ‘A comparative life cycle assessment of tyre recycling using pyrolysis compared to conventional end-of-life pathways’, the study contrasts Pyrum Innovations’ pyrolysis process against three other end-of-life tyre disposal methods.
In 2020, chemical company BASF invested 16 million euros in Pyrum Innovations as part of its ChemCycling project and since then has purchased Pyrum pyrolysis oil, feed this into its production network for the manufacture of Ccycled products. BASF looks forward to significantly increasing the quantities of pyrolysis oil it uses when Pyrum brings planned new facilities online – and is now supporting this plant rollout through the signing of a cooperation agreement, under which it will initially provide Pyrum with 25 million euros of financing.
Recycling company Remondis Group recently signed a letter of intent with Pyrum Innovations. The partners intend to set up a plant for reclaiming raw materials from end-of-life tyres on a site in Bremen, Germany that’s owned by Weserport, a subsidiary of Remondis sister company Rhenus. This plant will be capable of recycling 20,000 tonnes of tyres annually.
Pyrum Innovations has produced the first batch of pyrolysis oil in one of the two new reactors it has installed at its main facility in Germany. Although the Pyrum team has only made “small quantities” of oil so far, this marks a further step towards volume production.
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