rCB Standardization

For recovered carbon black to trade as a genuine raw material rather than a loosely defined by-product, buyers need common terms to tell it apart from char. ASTM International, which maintains more than 12,800 standards worldwide, has now provided that language with its first standard dedicated to recovered carbon black (rCB) for use in rubber, plastics, and pigment applications.

The standard, designated D8178, was developed by ASTM Committee D36 on Recovered Carbon Black, founded in 2017 to support the emerging rCB industry on product quality and safety. Its purpose is to distinguish the value of rCB from char products and to make communication about rCB performance in proposed applications more precise — exactly what an emerging market needs before buyers will specify it at scale.

The most commercially significant definition is what earns the product name “recovered carbon black”: the standard applies the term only when the raw carbon black has been freed from metals and fibers and has been milled — processing steps without which the material delivers only semi-reinforcing properties in rubber. That distinction separates a quality, specifiable product from unprocessed char that carries none of the same value.

D8178 also draws a clear line between char, carbon black as defined by ASTM D3053, raw recovered carbon black, and rCB, and points the industry to existing test methods it can adopt — ash content, heating loss, pH value, sulfur content, pellet size distribution, and pour density, together with evaluation procedures in styrene-butadiene rubber and natural rubber.

Beneath this work is a recognition that conventional carbon black characterization, based on structure level and surface area, does not correlate to in-rubber performance in the same way for recovered products — which is why ASTM will drive the identification of methods specific to rCB. For a market built on end-of-life tires diverted from landfill, that specificity is what turns recovered carbon black into a material buyers can reliably specify.

Learn More:

• Recovered Carbon Black
• Circular rCB India
• Sustainable rCB India
• Tire Pyrolysis
• Pyrolysis Oil
• Feasibility Studies
• Turn-Key Projects

Supply Standardized Recovered Carbon Black

ASTM’s D8178 standard gives buyers a clear basis for separating quality rCB from char.

Klean Industries produces recovered carbon black from end-of-life tires to a specification that aligns with emerging ASTM terminology.

Why Specify Klean Industries’ Recovered Carbon Black?

✅ rCB produced to meet the ASTM recovered carbon black definition
✅ Clear separation of your product from low-value char
✅ Consistent, specifiable material for rubber and plastics
✅ Feasibility studies to launch rCB production

Ready to supply standardized recovered carbon black?

Contact Klean Industries about rCB standardization » GO.