Integrated Recycling of End-of-Life Tires through Pyrolysis for Fuels Production with Hydrogen Recovery

Waste tire management is a crucial and actual problem. Exploiting new technologies for their treatment is a key point in an optical of circularity. The objective of this preliminary project is to design and simulate a novel approach for recycling of end-of-life tires. This involves implementing tire pyrolysis, followed by well-known processes to enhance the quality of the resulting gaseous and liquid outputs. Enhancing treatment methods are crucial, given the substantial sulfur content in the feedstock (approximately 2 w.t.%). Indeed, this sulfur can lead to the generation of numerous impurities during pyrolysis. This contribution is proposing a conceptual process design utilizing Aspen Plus V11 coupled with MATLAB for specific unconventional units. The process is divided into three main blocks: pyrolysis; oil upgrading via hydrotreating; hydrogen recovery system. This allowed to assess the performance of each plant section and make preliminary evaluations regarding hydrogen consumption.