US 4,647,443 A · Recovery process

Abstract

A process for economically recovering carbon black, oil and fuel gas from vehicle tires is disclosed, for either whole tires or physically fragmented tires. The tires are washed to remove dirt and road film. The clean tires are dried and preheated with super-heat steam. The hot tires are pyrolyzed to partially devolatize a major portion of the hydrocarbons and produce a char that can be separated from the steel and fiber glass. The char is subsequently pyrolyzed with microwaves that elevate the tire temperature and devolatize the remaining hydrocarbons from the char as gas. The hot gases are cooled and partially condensed. The uncondensed gas is used as fuel. The condensed oil is sent to storage. The solid residue from the tire pyrolysis is char, fiberglass and steel. The char is mechanically separated from the glass and steel. The char is milled to break down agglomerates and subsequently pelletized and bagged. The steel and glass are discarded as trash.

Claims35

Dependent claims

A process for manufacturing carbon black and hydrocarbons from discarded tires, comprising:

introducing the tires into a reactor;
pyrolyzing the tires in a pyrolysis reaction vessel substantially in the absence of artificially introduced oil heating media at a temperature and pressure and for a reaction time sufficient to cause the tires to dissociate into a vapor phase and a solid phase;
said pyrolyzing step including directly, internally heating the tires in the reaction vessel using microwave energy;
producing carbon black from the solid phase;
and
processing said vapor phase to produce hydrocarbons.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Recovery process

Life of this patent

Recovery process

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims35