October 26, 2007
RJLG Receives Grant to Implement Depolymerization Process for Greene County Tire Pile
PITTSBURGH - RJ Lee Group (RJLG) has been
awarded a $250,000 grant to perform a study on tires that will be
removed from the Kiger tire pile in Perry Township in Greene
County, PA. Here, significant numbers of scrap tires are currently
being stored. The Kiger grant will help to define the quality of
the end products produced by a recycling process of aged tires.
This DEPolymerization™ process extracts carbon black, fuel oil and
gas from scrap tires.
Tire piles present many environmental issues. The piles are a
ground water contamination and fire hazard; they provide ideal
insect breeding grounds; and they are aesthetically unpleasing and
a burden to taxpayers. In 1996, Pennsylvania enacted legislation
(1) to manage disposal of waste tires and encourage their
recycling. Greene County Industrial Development (GCID) applied for
a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
Protection (PA DEP) to demonstrate the use of RJLG's
DEPolymerization™ technology in processing and disposing of ‘aged
tires'. Aged tires represent tires that have been present in a tire
pile for an extended period of time in various environments: tires
that are buried underground, tires under water, and tires exposed
to sunlight and ambient conditions. Aged tires change chemically
and physically over time, and this rate of change depends on the
environmental conditions to which they are exposed. The purpose of
this study is to demonstrate the use of ‘aged tires' in
DEPolymerization™. When successful, this study will have proven
that depolymerizing aged tires is both economically and
environmentally advantageous.
Although RJLG has demonstrated success in depolymerizing "fresh" scrap tires, effective use of ‘aged tires' in the DEPolymerization™ process has not yet been demonstrated. This project will evaluate the ability of the DEPolymerization™ system to process aged tires in varying stages of degradation. The demonstration is composed of several tasks: 1) removal of a subset of aged tires from the Kiger tire pile; 2) process the tires (e.g. clean, ship, shred the tires to acceptable size range, and DEPolymerization™ of tire shreds); 3) evaluation and characterization of the aged tires prior to DEPolymerization™; 4) evaluation of the quality and quantity of end products (DE carbon black) and by-products (oil and gas) produced; and 5) develop a cost model for processing tires from an aged tire pile. By performing this study, RJLG will gather valuable information about depolymerizing aged tires to compare with prior results attained using newly scrapped tires. This study will also leave the Kiger tire pile in better condition than it was beforehand by removing a number of old tires from the site.
Representative Bill DeWeese (D) of Greene County has been instrumental in arranging for this grant. He is also working with RJLG to bring a DEPolymerization™ plant to western Pennsylvania. Previously, Representative DeWeese has teamed with RJLG to create approximately 35 new jobs at its new facility at EverGreene Technology Park in Waynesburg, PA. It is anticipated that a tire DEPolymerization™ plant in Greene County would employ about 40 people.
1 ACT 1996-190, Waste Tire Recycling Act, "Relating to the
recycling and reuse of waste tires; providing for the proper
disposal of waste tires and the cleanup of stockpiled tires"
For more information on RJLG's spin-off, Delta-Energy, visit the
web site at www.deltaenergy.com.
Follow Us