Sustainable Development Goals
Organizations Involved:
TPL, Steinbeis Foundation, Baufeld Refinery, Martin Luther University, European Union, German Government, Niersberger, MeWa Shredders
Services:
Design & Engineering, Turn-Key DBC, Due Diligence, Supply Chain Management, Carbon Management, Packaged Solutions, Operator Training
The Challenge:
It's quite possibly one of the great global challenges we have today, with nearly +2 billion used tyres and more than +100 million metric tonnes of waste plastics being disposed of carelessly every single year. These specific waste streams are highly calorific and by not recovering them, we are simply squandering untold amounts of energy, not just in making them but also in what's left inside them. Tyres and plastics are full of energy and chemicals. However, left unrecovered, scrap tyres and waste plastics are a burden to the environment and are also highly carcinogenic and a serious threat to the health of all living things on planet Earth. Their toxicity is extreme as they are made of expensive petrochemical products.
What if there was a resource recovery process that could effectively and economically turn plastic waste and scrap tyres back into valuable materials such as recovered fuel oil and recovered carbon black, that could be dropped right back into its original supply chain such as the tire manufacturing industry; with zero secondary pollutant emissions. This is one of the key engineering challenges the KleanTeam is fully committed to solving on a global level. It is this project and many others that we have developed by improving upon existing systems and processes to develop our patented technologies to recover valuable products that meet the highest requirements for safety, economic efficiency, and commercial marketing opportunities.
The Solution:
In 2009, a project company TLP GmbH ("TPL") was established focusing on the development and construction of technologies for the conversion of various wastes into recyclable materials. TPL aimed at developing an effective and environmentally friendly technology that combined recycling with low consumption of energy or even generation of energy. This was to become the key technology we would implement for our projects.
The KleanTeam was able to gain a lot of experience during the feasibility analysis and we built up a comprehensive analysis during the evaluation process of other technologies which was combined with experience gained from the development and participation in various pilot plants. All advantages and disadvantages up to the construction level were examined to evaluate the possible practical implementation in continuous industrial operation.
Additionally, basic technologies of waste utilization were analyzed and reinterpreted in alternative conceptual ideas. Professional staff with many years of experience in this field were hired. The acquired knowledge is the essential basis for obtaining the necessary permits according to the German Immission Control Act. As a result of the extensive studies, pyrolysis technology was selected as the preferred technology for industrial implementation at the TPL site in Hoyerswerda, Germany. This plant was expected to be able to process 10,000 TPA of mixed waste tyres consisting of both passenger cars and commercial truck tyres, unfortunately, the technology had significant processing and control issues. TPL then set out to redesign the resource recovery industry by implementing this new pyrolysis technology in Europe. This was not achieved without many challenges because at the time there was no market for the output products produced. Along with a lack of end-users for the products produced from the pyrolysis process, the output was of very low quality and was simply of no interest to the existing supply chains for reuse and reintroduction to the marketplace. The KleanTeam had to create the marketplace and prove that the output products from pyrolysis could be used commercially.
This required the innovation of the KleanTeam to redesign virtually every aspect of the technology and process metrics to improve not only the quality and longevity of the equipment needed but also significantly improve the quality of the product produced from the process itself. During this reworking, significant know-how was gained that simply could not be purchased by merely buying equipment out of the marketplace. As a result of the innovations developed by the TPL project, the intellectual property and know-how were then rolled up into a new company called Carbon Resources Recovery GmbH ("CRR") based in Berlin. This led to the development and redesign of the technology used in the ReOil project in Bukowno, Poland approximately 45 minutes from the city center of Katowice, Poland.
As a result of this success, Klean Industries acquired 100% ownership of CRR and the TPL technology portfolio that encompasses all of the process technology and know-how gained over a decade of tyre pyrolysis engineering.
The Outcome:
The result is the preservation of finite resources through the production of the following sustainable commodities (approximate volume):
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