Abstract
The annual amount of waste tires is enormous and permanently on the increase. Since their structure resists both physical and chemical degradation, their appropriate processing is an environmentally important subject and it is still a current research topic despite of the already existing technologies e.g. pyrolysis, thermal utilization.
In our work, a novel selective physical separation technology of waste tires is developed, presented and investigated. The technology is based on our new disassembling machine that enables the selective separation of the tread material of any kind of tires apart from their other constituting materials. The separation is an automated cutting process and its thermal profile is examined with a thermal imaging camera to determine if the cutting process can be associated with any kind of thermal degradation of the tread material. It is also an aim to detect if a special construction material of high thermal resistance would be needed for the cutting device. The experimental results are analyzed with the help of special software and it is found that the temperature values of the tire and the disassembling device can be classified into four different thermal zones. It is also determined that our novel device can be applied for tire machining; no thermal degradation occurs during the process, and there is no need for special construction material for the novel cutting device.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.