A TREATMENT PROCESS ENHANCES THE COMMERCIAL VIABILITY OF MIXING GROUND, SCRAP TIRE RUBBER INTO ASPHALT.
Worn-out tires are an underused resource in the United States. Cars, buses, and trucks cast off 274 million tires in 2021. While more than two-thirds of these were recycled, that leaves nearly 80 million tires that never made it to a secondary market.
Researchers at Iowa State University (ISU) have developed a patented technique to match the density of ground tire rubber with that of asphalt by compounding the rubber particles with scrap polydiene such as polybutadiene or polyisoprene. This process causes the particles to swell, decreasing their density and producing a modified ground tire rubber that meets current market storage stability specifications. ISU has partnered with Lehigh Technologies, a subsidiary of tire maker Michelin, to refine and demonstrate the technology.
Read more about this project, its objectives, impacts, and the next steps taken by reading the full summary here.
Project Participants:
- Iowa State University (ISU)
- Lehigh Technologies