Dear colleagues & friends of recovered Carbon Black,
here is your October dose of recovered Carbon Black news! We now have 6,802 subscribers and counting!
Overview
Using AI for Carbon Black & recovered Carbon Black
Upcoming Smithers rCB Europe in Amsterdam
My controversial opinion on rCB ash reduction
Reflections on Smithers rCB Asia in Qingdao, China
Using A.I. for Carbon Black & recovered Carbon Black
Judge for yourself and watch this audio only Youtube conversation about my "rCB News" newsletter (yes, the one your are just reading). It sounds so conversational and intelligent, even for me who wrote all those rCB News. And yet, it was done by A.I. in a matter of minutes after I uploaded some PDF prints of the rCB News. I just called the A.I. voices "Jennifer & Kyle".
A really nice application of this is that you get a one paragraph summary and some suggested questions, in addition to a .wav audio file in which a female voice talk about the topics of your upload.
Brilliant, I thought, and uploaded my rCB Asia conference presentation PDF. That is where the system fell short of my expectation. Maybe it requires fully formulated text to understand a topic instead of just bullet points? The audio conversation of this presentation had so many mistakes!
For the industry and for corporations, it is a risk if results are not predictable. But this is a manageable risk when you do a manual control after the summary was created. The other risk is, of course, that of IP and origination. By sharing documents to any AI system other than your own, you will be leaking and giving away information for free and to the competition.
I am still enjoying my adventures in A.I. In some areas, like image and video editing as well as image capture in some of my cameras, A.I. is already well established.
How about you? 👍 or 👎 for A.I. ?
Upcoming Smithers rCB Europe in Amsterdam
After the conference is before the conference. We are now all focussing on the European edition of the recovered Carbon Black Conference, rCB Europe 2024 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, from November 4th (rCB workshop) till November 6th (conference).
Do you have your ticket yet?? Make sure you also book the workshop! Here is a link for you:https://www.carbonblackworld.com/recovered-carbon-black
But first things first. We are expecting some 250 - 350 delegates in Amsterdam, so slightly less than last year in Barcelona. But the two conferences, rCB Asia and rCB Europe together already have as many delegates as rCB in Barcelona (388 delegates).
You have been to rCB Asia, why should you also come to rCB Europe? So you got industry news from rCB Asia, but the focus of the Qingdao rCB Asia conference was Asia. Register for rCB Europe in Amsterdam to get deeper updates on what drives rCB & TPO in the western world and how to navigate the challenges of regulations in the western world!
Let's say you have been building your business under the radar, but now want to make a big marketing splash in front of some 300 delegates. Then you should consider sponsoring. You can sponsor a coffee break, lunch or more. Contact my colleague Ellie Baker at Smithers!
My controversial opinion on rCB ash reduction
Ash reduction, the holy grail for recovered carbon black?
We all know that rCB can be under par in rubber performance when compared to furnace carbon black, right? And we all know that it carries quite a high content of impurities, correct?
So, let's take the impurities away and, presto, we got prime carbon black!
Unfortunately, it does not work like this.
Maybe you have seen that I do not use the term "virgin carbon black". There is absolutely nothing virgin about carbon black. It is made from fossil feedstocks. And by the way, once you lost virginity, there is no way leading back, right? I am now coining the term "prime carbon black" instead, which I think fits the context better than "virgin carbon black". "Prime carbon black" means that it is just one carbon black grade with a very defined distribution of aggregate sizes.
By the way, I took the inspiration to the term "prime carbon black" from the photography / videography world where we have prime lenses and zoom lenses. A prime lens has one focal length, while zoom lenses have a span of focal lengths. This makes rCB to be a zoom carbon black, because it spans across all aggregate size distributions of the carbon blacks it contains.
And this is the issue with all elaborate rCB ash leaching technologies: They cost you OPEX, they need additional energy and finally they emit additional CO2. And with all that, at the end of the day you, are still left with a mix of several carbon blacks that will never have prime grade performance. So why all this hassle??
Get me right, this reflects our current situation. Once our end-of-life tyres are filled with rCB as much as tyre producers can possibly allow, we might need to reduce the inorganic contents so that rCB still has some carbon in it. But right now, we are very far from that point in time.
And you, are you considering rCB ash reduction??
PS:
As a creator in the carbon black industry, I do "normal" interviews like the "Industry Talk" interview with John & Joe from Birla Carbon, but sometimes I also do "crazy" productions like the "Carbon black in the red dress" Youtube Short clip, which probably very few colleagues really understood.
In the Matrix movie, Morpheus takes Neo into a sandpit Matrix system, where Neo is tempted by the view of a lady in a red dress, only to look into a gun of Agent Smith moments after.
In my 18 second Youtube Short production, I adapt this scene to the recovered carbon black industry, which is tempted by ash leaching companies to think they will get a prime carbon after the process. So I say, "don't be tempted by the carbon black in the red dress", you will regret it later (but hopefully not face a gun).
Do me a favour, watch my Youtube Short clip and tell me what you think about it!!
Reflections on Smithers rCB Asia in Qingdao, China
Last week we had the Smithers rCB Asia Conference in Qingdao, China. I think we can call it a big success, even before hearing any voices from Smithers management.
We had some 170 people in the room (clearly more than seats) and some 10 (?) people online.
Before the rCB Asia conference, I admittedly had very little knowledge about Chinese rCB. I discussed this with my industry friend Pieter ter Haar in the run&gun filmed Youtube Short "Martin & Pieter chat about rCB Asia Conference".
Expo
The Expo had some major companies exhibiting including Hosokawa Alpine Aktiengesellschaft, Ecostar, CleanTire, Fermintrade and Niutech.
The agenda was packed with top notch topics around rCB and had presentations of all styles from personal (mine) over scientific (for example femtoG) to corporate (from Chinese companies).
rCB specifications & upgrading
Topics of (my) interest were around rCB upgrading and modifications as well as specifications. It turns out, that the Chinese rCB industry, well, at least major players including Ecostar and CleanTire, have worked on rCB industry standards using Chinese national standards for carbon black testing! I leave it open at this point whether these are the right standards (there always will be criticism), but I strongly believe that any standard is better than no standard.
In China, 5 grades have been defined, 3 pelleted rCBs and 2 "fluffy" powder grades. Hove a look at this table to get an overview (source: Ecostar brochure)
Chinese industrywide rCB grades (Source: Ecostar brochure)
I would make the comment that this is a quite simple system mixing COA items (pellet hardness and fines) with other product characteristics including static performance in rubber. It lacks an assessment for rCB's dynamic behaviour in rubber, which is essential for the performance in tyres, but again, any specification is better than none!
Jian-feng Cai from Cabot Corporation held an interesting presentation, showing that the company has been working on rCB- or rather "rC" upgrading technologies (Cabot calls rCB "reclaimed carbon"). The company showed data that suggest partial replacement of N330 and even N220 has been enabled with this treatment. Lamentably, no details were disclosed what exactly enabled this performance of the treated rC / rCB.
rCB upgrading was also covered by several other presenters. However, in China, the primary focus for upgrading rCB is the reduction of organic volatiles, as most of the continuous pyrolysis installations in China are rotary kilns, which typically cannot get rCB volatiles under ~3% in a single stage.
Innovation
A real innovation to the rCB Conference family was the rCB production facility visit of Ecostar. I hope that the European Smithers team can implement this also in Europe for 2025.
Another innovation of this conference was the partnership with the CTRA, the Chinese Retreading & Recycling Association as top partner. This surely brought the conference in the spotlight of the Chinese tyre recycling industry. I love that the association covers both retreading & recycling, and I find that this sequence should be the mantra for our industry.
I also found that the conference was run very professionally by the young team around Smithers 's Director of Operations in China, Nancy Yao , who all might by now be on a well deserved "Golden Week" holiday for the Chinese National Day on October 1st.
Thank you Nancy & team for such a great rCB Asia! I believe we have created a new & loyal rCB community in Asia.
And "Happy Golden Week Holidays!" to all my Chinese friends!
Next edition?
I am very much looking forward to travelling to Asia again next year. We are still collecting voices and suggestions for the location. China again, but in a different region? Or maybe Thailand? India with its many operations? Taiwan with a visit to Enrestec??
Where would you like Smithers to run the next rCB Asia??
Thank you!
Do you have questions or comments? Let me know!👇
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