Tires are key to car safety, since they are the only element that connects a car to the road. It is essential to monitor its good condition. But once they no longer fulfill their purpose due to use and deterioration, they can have a second life.
In addition to being used as a base for roads, to prevent the collapse of buildings in earthquakes or to make recycled paints, one of the main compounds of End-of-Use Tires (NFU) is carbon black, which constitutes 22% of its weight and is used as an additive to strengthen rubber, thus increasing its resistance to traction and wear. An element that is key for these used tires to return to the car, transformed into lithium batteries for electric cars.
Black carbon can be extracted from NFU through pyrolysis, a high-temperature heat treatment process without oxygen. The recovered black carbon can then be transformed into hard graph carbon, an essential component in the anode of electric vehicle lithium-ion batteries. This method, developed by T-Phite, not only allows tires to be recycled, but can also be a milestone in the sustainable manufacturing of lithium battery components.
The charging capacity of recovered carbon black anodes is comparable to that of conventional graphite, but the true value of this innovation, in addition to the significant potential to improve the efficiency and durability of electric vehicle batteries, lies. in its contribution to the circular economy and its lower environmental impact, by reducing the need to extract graphite, a resource-intensive process that is harmful to the environment.
In each lithium-ion battery of an electric car there is an average of 52 kg of graphite, 25% of its volume. Its supply comes mostly from China and has become vital at a time of expansion for electric vehicles.
To make a battery, you would need approximately the rubber transformed into graphitic carbon from 21 unused tires.
NFU, which normally present challenges in recycling, thus find a new life in high-tech applications, in addition to offering a practical solution to the large amount of secondary raw material obtained from them, transforming them into valuable components for industry and mobility. . sustainable.
As explained from TNU, every year more than 295,000 tons of out-of-use tires are discarded in Spain, 3.5 million tons in Europe and 29 million in the world. They are a serious environmental problem, and their recovery and recycling are essential to achieve the sustainable development goals set for 2030.
#lithium #batteries #tires #truth
