Tyres to Burn

The head of UTD Research, a midlands based company, has submitted an application for a patent to turn old disused tyres into diesel.

The company has built a prototype plant in north Wales that it hopes will handle the processing of up to two million tyres per year.

The process is called continuous reductive distillation, this is where the tyres are first broken up into hand sized chunks and then heated in a reduced oxygen atmosphere so that the volatile elements separate from the steel and carbon solids.

The majority of gasses that are given off from the process are condensed into oil, while some are recycled to provide the power for the heating process. From the projected two million tyres the plant should produce about 6.5 million litres of crude oil.

With the new EU ban on discarding disused tyres in landfill sites now fully in force in the UK and the recent rises in crude oil prices it has meant that an operation of this type is now economically viable.

It is estimated by the Used Tyre Working Group that 48 million tyres were disposed of in 2005 in the UK. UTD has plans to open two more plants in the UK within five years.

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