From Tuesday 16th of February until Thursday 18th of February, European and international companies in the tyre value chain met in Hannover for the TireTech Expo and Conference. In total, there were over 4,500 visitors and 262 exhibitor companies.
The emails
UKIP Media & Events sent out daily emails to all TireTech registrants in a sort of screaming yellow press style marketing. Some were really useful, like a complete list of all companies attending as visitors (the exhibitor list was online on tiretechnology-expo.com). Other emails and the frequency they were sent with were a bit onerous, but surely kept us all focussing on the event ; - )
The venue
I had attended the past two TireTech Expos in Cologne. Between the two venues, I found that the on-fair environment was much better in Hannover (the entire Expo was situated on one level on the ground, the conference sessions and the speaker's lounge were on the first level), while the external environment was nicer in Cologne (the fair ground is located in Cologne-Deutz on the east side of the river Rhine and in proximity of Cologne Cathedral and the old town with many nice restaurants).
The recycling speaker panel
On Thursday, thanks to David Shaw, I was on the recycling speaker panel along with Bob Kind (Technical Director at Polymer Recyclers), Dr. Carla Recker (Head of the Expert-field Materials Chemistry at Continental, also project leader for the dandelion rubber project) and Kedar Murthy (VP & GM Lehigh Technologies) and we had about 20 people in the audience. Our talk went along the question what tyre makers need to embrace recycled materials in tyre formulations.
For tyre makers, there are three obstacles for using recycled materials such as devulcanised rubber or tyre pyrolysis carbon black:
There is a quality and quality consistency concern with regards to recycled materials, especially for use in passenger car tyres
The tyre industry wants to avoid liability for tyre recycling and a circular economy (currently consumers have to pay for disposal of tyres)
The recycling industry is not mature enough and innovation providers often don't have the required track record or scale of operations required by tyre makers
On the quality concerns, the question came up how many cycles of recycling a rubber material might be able to do and how this could be determined. Part of the problem is the complexity of a tyre and the large number of tyre materials used. Mono-material systems are much easier to recycle, like for example PET-plastic bottles and paper. But even paper has a limit of 5 cycles, due to the shortening of paper fibres and the change in properties. Transferred into a rubber context, the quality of a recycled devulcanised rubber could be measured by the length of the polymer chains and associated properties like rheology etc.
Dr. Carla Recker explained that her work group expects close to 100% performance from recycled materials. This makes the use of mixed recycled materials like pyrolysis carbon blacks quite difficult. Pyrolysis carbon blacks are a mixture of the various carbon blacks used in different functional parts of a tyre, for example reinforcing carbon blacks, silica, non reinforcing carbon blacks, vulcanising agents like sulphur and others. More work is needed to increase the value add and differentiation of recovered carbon blacks in tyre compounds.(Addendum: I am certain that recovered carbon black will eventually find its way back into tyres. But before that, some product development home work has to be done by pyrolysis ventures and their associated consultants.)
How does the situation look from the view of recycling companies? Start-ups typically plan a breakeven within 2 years. The new raw material sales cycle into tyre business, however, can be as long as 5-7 years. This is why I normally advise recycling companies to target non-tyre business for the first couple of years starting up. Once prospecting with tyre makers, less demanding segments like agri- or mining-tyres could also be a better entry than passenger car tyres where regulations are complex and safety concerns very high.
"Recovering the full potential of carbon black after pyrolysis"
This hot topic was covered on Thursday in the conference session 5 and it hits exactly where the current main issue for recovered carbon black is. Lokeshwari Mohan from Queen Mary University in London reported about her master thesis which was carried out in collaboration with Carbon Clean Tech, still the only tyre pyrolysis operation in Europe commercially selling recovered carbon black. There were only a handful of listeners and I was the only one who asked a question. But the presentation was excellent and made my day.
Lokeswari examined a range of so called "etching" technologies:
Acid treatment with acids like HF or H2SO4
Caustic treatment with NaOH
Oxidising treatment with H2O2 or K2S2O8
While the surface of recovered carbon black particles could be successfully modified, reducing the ash content and sulphur on the surface, there appeared to be a higher Payne-effect in rubber, meaning more filler-filler effects and less dispersibility. Carbon Clean Tech have not yet analysed how much manufacturing costs would be added due to etching. However, manufacturing costs for oxidised virgin carbon blacks usually are about 50% higher than for non-oxidised grades. This etching topic will surely be continued in various other events (like the ETRA conference in March) and hopefully also by other pyrolysis companies and researchers.
Miscellaneous
I had a couple of great meetings on the TireTech expo, some with tyre makers, some on the topic of tyre granulation, some on the marketing of recovered carbon black, some on M&As and some on business development for advanced tyre compound additives. I also had a good meeting with ContiTech outside the fair. What I enjoyed was that on two booths of the fair there were real Italian espresso machines with professional baristas! The gala dinner at the table of my client Stephenson Group was very nice with good food & drinks, excellent music and entertainment though the TireTech awards presented by Tony Robinson, CEO and founder of the organiser UKIP Media & Events. All in all a very good TireTech for me and it will be a pleasure following up on my talks. 2017 is already booked in my calendar!
Would you appreciate some help?
Are you interested in advancing your sales with a custom tailored sales process? Would you like support for the marketing of recovered carbon black? Let's talk. Let me help you grow your business. Ask me for a free Skype session. My Skype ID ismartin.von.wolfersdorff
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Best wishes, Martin
Martin von Wolfersdorff is principal consultant at WOLFERSDORFF CONSULTING. He helps chemical, materials and other B2B companies optimise sales & strategy and connects OEM companies with innovation providers. Martin also has expert knowledge in titanium dioxide, custom colour masterbatch, carbon black and tyre recycling materials like recycled carbon black and devulcanised polymers. He has held various roles from R&D engineer to commercial director EMEA at ICI, Huntsman Pigments, Americhem Europe Ltd and Cabot Switzerland GmbH.
For more frequent updates, follow him on Twitter @m_v_w and on LinkedIn.
Further LinkedIn Pulse articles:
"Leadership: The Art of Possibility in a business context"
http://bit.ly/Art-of-Possibility
"Optimising the chemical distribution channel"
http://bit.ly/optimise-distribution
