Australian tire recycler Green Distillation Technologies, which has developed technology that breaks tires down back into oil, carbon and steel, is to expand the capacity of its plant at Warren in Western New South Wales, Australia.
The installation of an additional processing module will double the existing production output capacity with a plan to reach an annual processing capacity of 19,300 tons of tires. As further investment funds become available the company states the plant will be extended further with up to six modules to handle the full design capacity.
Consistent with the design specification it notes that a typical 10kg car tire will yield 3.6 liters of oil, 4.7kg of carbon and 2kg of steel; a 70kg truck tire will provide 25 liters of oil, 33kg of carbon and 14kg of steel; and a 4-metric ton oversize mining dump truck tire will yield 1.9 metric tons of carbon, 0.8 metric tons of steel and 1,420 liters of oil. The company notes that a fully operating plant, with six modules online, would generate 6,860,000 liters of high-quality oil, 9,032 metric tons of carbon and 3,760 metric tons of recovered steel per annum.
Chief operating Officer of Green Distillation Technologies Trevor Bayley said that the plant extension was an important milestone for the company: “Clearly, investment funds are vitally important and you have to spend money to make money and our aim is to get the Warren plant to full capacity so we can not only provide positive proof of our technology, but the economics of our process through the sale of the oil, carbon and steel we produce.
“Warren is the site of our original research and development work that started in 2009 and since then we have proven the concept, although we have moved to a new 21 hectare location which allows plenty of space for future expansion. The extent of the looming future world end-of-life disposal problem is not generally realized with a projected 2.7 billion expected to be generated in 2025.”
