A thermolysis process to obtain recovered carbon black and fuel, from disused tires, wherein the process comprises the steps of:
- a) crushing the disused tires comprising light hydrocarbons and heavy hydrocarbons comprising rubber to a size between 0.25 cm to 10 cm and comprising some water;
- b) feeding the crushed material to a rotating horizontal cylindrical thermolysis reactor, which is surrounded by an outer chamber;
- c) closing the reactor and feeding an inert gas to the reactor, in order to generate an oxygen-free atmosphere;
- d) indirectly heating the reactor with gases that come from a combustion chamber, which are directed to the outer chamber;
- e) increasing the temperature in the reactor gradually from room temperature, maintaining the temperature in a range between 250° C. and 350° C. for a period of 1 to 4 hours, and gasifying the water, all the light hydrocarbons and at least a portion of the heavy hydrocarbons;
- f) increasing the temperature again to more than 450° C. for a period of 2 to 4 hours, achieving the gasification of the heavy hydrocarbons that are still in liquid state;
- g) obtaining from the set of reactor and outer chamber, a gaseous stream of hydrocarbons, combustion gases and recovered carbon black;
- h) cooling the recovered carbon black inside the reactor and extracting residual hydrocarbons from the recovered carbon black by stripping with the inert gas and extracting the recovered carbon black from the reactor;
- i) taking the hydrocarbon gaseous stream to a flash distillation container, where part of the stream remains in gaseous phase and the other goes to a liquid state;
- j) passing the gaseous phase from the flash distillation container towards a system of heat exchangers, where a part of the gaseous phase is condensed and another part is kept in a gaseous state, finally obtaining a two-phase current at the end of the passage through the system of heat exchangers;
- k) flowing the two-phase current that leaves the system of heat exchangers to a phase separation tank where a separation of condensate and gas occurs due to their different phases, producing a gas phase current and a liquid phase current;
- l) directing the gaseous phase current towards a battery of water seals thereby generating enough current to feed the combustion chamber in order to generate the necessary heat for the process to be energetically self-sustaining;
- m) directing the liquid phase current towards a filtering system to obtain a filtered fuel stream that is stored in a final storage tank, where a part of the filtered fuel stream remains in a container;
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- n) using part of the filtered fuel stream from the container in cleaning the system of heat exchangers in co-current with the gaseous phase.