Ecolomondo Corporation, a Canadian cleantech company that has developed thermal decomposition technology for recovering raw materials from scrap tyres, has appointed Gary Economo as Chief Executive Officer. Economo succeeds Eliot Sorella, who assumes the role of Executive Chairman while retaining his position as Chairman of the Board of Directors.
Fly tipping is by no means exclusive to the tyre industry, but over the years there has been a significant number of cases involving rogue collectors and illegal stockpiles of waste tyres. Removing and dealing with these stockpiles – which in some cases can number tens of thousands of scrap tyres – is both expensive and time-consuming, so what can be done to address this problem?
It appears that car tyres have been drafted into a protective role for Russia’s air force. Military aviation blog The Aviationist reports that “something interesting is emerging” from satellite imagery of Russia’s Engels-2 military airbase in Saratov Oblast, around 450 miles from the Ukrainian border. Satellite pictures show tyres placed on the wings and part of the upper fuselage of at least one Tu-95 Bear strategic bomber.
Despite its turnover increasing 4.6 per cent to more than 62 million euros in 2022 – a new record for the company – tyre recycler Genan reports that decreasing steel prices and significantly higher energy and freight costs more than halved its year-on-year earnings to less than 1.5 million euros. In response, the company is now speeding up its ongoing work to invest in renewable energy sources.
Stockpiles of scrap tyres in the United States of America have decreased 94 per cent since the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA) instigated efforts to re-purpose scrap tyres, reports the trade association. While scrap tyre stockpiles in the USA contained more than a billion tyres in total in 1991, by 2017 these stockpiles had reduced to just 60 million tyres.
Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are aiming are advocating tyre pyrolysis as a way of recovering carbon black for use as a graphite substitute in lithium-ion batteries. The goal is to scale up the recovery process and demonstrate applications as anodes for lithium-ion batteries in large-format “pouch cells”. These batteries could then be used in plug-in electric vehicles and to store energy produced by wind and solar sources.
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