Abstract
Rubbers, although widely used in society, are traditionally difficult to recycle. Most commercial recycling techniques are restricted to granulation, although the products of this process have low value and are under environmental scrutiny. State-of-the-art devulcanisation and/or pyrolysis of rubbers are associated with very high costs, and lead to an ill-defined array of products. However, for a long time tyre, degradation studies have unknowingly shown us a different way of depolymerisation, that is ozonolysis. For the first time, its potential as a recycling technique has been identified instead of being a nuisance to be avoided. Ozonolysis will be used as a novel, sustainable approach to potentially derive telechelic resins from rubber waste. In this project the various challenges regarding mass transfer, characterisation, work-up and scale-up will be overcome in order to provide recycled resin samples and recovered carbon black to industrial stakeholders, while establishing a functional lab scale reactor setup to attain this goal. Furthermore, the obtained resins will be characterised and employed in final demo-applications of new polycondensates as well as adhesives. Starting from recalcitrant (sometimes bio-based) waste, this green and relatively cheap oxidation method can therefore yield products with interesting, new properties, and at the same time off-set fossil-based source materials.
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