© 2025 Wolfersdorff Consulting Berlin - parts of image © and IP of ORION ENGINEERED CARBONS GMBH
Dear colleagues & friends of recovered Carbon Black,
Welcome to your July / August 2025 dose of curated recovered Carbon Black and related news. The views and opinions in this newsletter are my own.
We currently have7.333 subscribers and we also currently have 1.054 members in the LinkedIn rCB group Martin & friends: recovered Carbon Black "rCB" and tyre pyrolysis.
Overview
Orion patent for carbon black from rubber
Elysium Nordic News
TSCA registration for rCB
People news
rCB Asia
rCB Europe
ASTM D36 News
➡️ No time to read? Listen to the audio commentary here (14 min 43 s):
⬇️ Or continue to read (~5-8 min)
Orion patent for carbon black from rubber
A very interesting (and detailed) patent has been granted to Orion S.A. on 10th of July 2025. In the title image you can see the scheme of a new multiple hearth tyre pyrolysis reactor filed under
"WO 2025/146454 A1 „Carbon Black Production from Rubber in a Multiple Hearth Pyrolysis and Gasification Furnace”
I knew that Orion has been "cooking" something under the radar for a long time. But while in the past year, the company published about the installation of TPO tanks in Jaslo, Poland, and it's collaborations with Alpha Carbone in France and Contec S.A. in Poland, no details were mentioned about development of rCB or pyrolysis reactor technology.
The patent inventors listed include Arndt Schinkel (VP Innovation), Alex Bowles (Process Engineer, already renown in the rCB community through his presentations at rCB Europe), Dr. Andreas Widjaja (Prozessingenieur Innovation), David Deters (former VP Innovation), Eddy Timmermans and Michael Stanyschöfsky.
The new multiple hearth reactor is characterised by 3 sections, a pyrolysis zone operated at 360 - 740 °C, a buffer zone and a gasification zone operated at 750 - 950 °C.
Orion calls the solid product from the reactor "carbon black", not "recovered Carbon Black", writing that
"[007] It has been surprisingly found that the pyrolysis of rubber granulate, and subsequent gasification of the material lead to an improved carbon black compared to rCB. This can be beneficially done in a multi-layered pyrolysis reactor according to the invention."
Interestingly, further down in the patent, the company lists a couple of analysis methods that industry experts including those contributing to the ASTM D36 committee probably would not use, including iodine number, BET and STSA surface areas.
Can recovered Carbon Black be like prime carbon black after all?
I am sure that this patent will make an interesting study object for us all (probably using A.I. summaries) and I do hope that we will soon see a presentation from Orion about this development. Should I interview my Orion contacts?
Elysium Nordic News
After the success of Wastefront with attracting investment from International Airlines Group (IAG) for SAF production and starting construction of the Sunderland, UK, rCB / TPO production facility, I wondered how the second prominent EU project development company, Elysium Nordic, is doing. Rune Blæsbjerg told me that this project is on hold for the time being, but not at all closed. The company is open to collaborations with interested investors.
TSCA registration for rCB
Sometimes, rCB is called other names. In the past, rCB was called "CBp" (carbon black pyrolytic), Cabot Corporation calls it "reclaimed carbon". Orion S.A. calls its own rCB "carbon black". Birla Carbon calls its rCB & rCB / CB mixtures "sustainable carbonaceous materials (SCMs)".
The European Chemicals Agency calls rCB "Amorphous carbon and silicon dioxide recovered from two-stage pyrolysis of spent tyres", after Circtec put in the work to register the material under REACH. Its EC number is "954-402-4" and the REACH registration reference number is "01-2120924226-59-abcd", with "abcd" standing for the registrant ("0001") and co-registrants identifiers.
Now, rCB (or rather "Tires, wastes, pyrolyzed, carbon black fraction") has a CAS number, 1297477-28-1, thanks to our friends at Birla Carbon and Circtec. CAS 1297477-28-1 is specifically also valid for CONTINUA™ 8510P SCM and now is also registered under the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 's Toxic Substances Control Act ("TSCA").
A big thank you goes to Joseph Hallett from Birla Carbon for this info!
People News
Ad van Oorschot (formerly Black Bear Carbon) is now with Orion S.A.
Frank Cremer (formerly Bolder Industries) is now with Pyrum Innovations AG.
Peter Jan Bleeker (formerly Shell) is now Circular Products Originator at Vitol.
Gérald THOMAS is new MD at RISORCE.
👏👏👏 Congrats to your new responsibilities, dear colleagues! And see you at rCB Europe!
rCB Asia
The Asian rCB community will meet in 3 weeks, on September 4th-5th in the Avani Sukhumvit Bangkok Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. I am stoked to have 2 great tyre industry keynotes at rCB Asia, one by 路佳 from Continental and one from at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.
Click the following links for more info, to book your ticket and to enjoy expert talks:
Event info. Book here. Interview with Epsilon Carbon. Interview with Martin.
See you in Bangkok!
PS: I recommend watching the interview with Sagar Mathur from Epsilon Carbon Pvt. Ltd.!
rCB Europe
The rCB Europe community will meet later on in the year, on November 4th (pre-conference workshop), 5th and 6th (main conference) in the Hyatt Regency Barcelona Tower hotel in Barcelona, Spain. Our agenda is already 99% set and we will announce the tyre keynote soon. Stay tuned!
Click the following links for more info, to book your ticket and to enjoy expert talks:
Event info. Book here. Why you should attend (full agenda walk through).
See you in Barcelona later this year!
ASTM D36 News
Now the big news! Two good news items came today from ASTM D36:
ASTM D8621-25 "Standard Test Methods for Recovered Carbon Black—Ash Content" is the brand new, rCB specific ash analysis. The good news is that this analysis now only requires 2 hours to complete instead of being an "overnight" test.
More good news are that today, the ASTM D36 members were invited to vote for the rCB classification D36 (25-04). The proposal is to classify rCBs according to 2 parameters, the ash content and the toluene transmittance. Both are relatively easy to measure, the first shows us how good the ELT tyre feedstock is controlled, the second shows us how good the pyrolysis is controlled.
The D36 (25-04) nomenclature is proposed as follows:
The toluene transmittance has 4 classes, 1 for 95-100%, 2 for 80-94%, 3 for 60-79% and 4 for <60%. The ash content has 3 classes, 1 for <10%, 2 for 10-20%, 3 for >20%.
Then the rCB grade name will be composed of "R" + toluene transmittance class + ash content class, for example "R12".
I do hope that the third time round will be the lucky winner for the rCB classification. After too many tests (4 tests) and too few tests (1 test), this could be a good middle ground. I voted for the proposal, because I believe we need to implement a classification of some sort as soon as possible.
However, I also believe that the classification should be complemented with an application test in the very near future (e.g. rubber activity, DMA or tensile, my favourite is the rubber activity).
In addition I have enquired with the ASTM D36 committee to update ASTM D8178-25 "Standard Terminology Relating to Recovered Carbon Black (rCB)". I see this definition as a low key "recycling" definition of rCB, that in fact is harming more than helping the industry. It would be highly desirable for our industry to define rCB as a "high-tech" and "purpose application engineered product", similar to carbon black.
A big thank you goes to Pieter ter Haar (Chair of ASTM D36) and all active, contributing members!
➡️ Liked the rCB newsletter? Want to comment or say hi? Let us know! ✍️ ➡️
Prospects for recovered Carbon Black 2024 - August 2025 update
Wolfersdorff Consulting Berlin
