Bridgestone breaks ground on waste tire pyrolysis pilot plant

Tokyo – Bridgestone has broken ground on a new pilot demonstration plant for “precise pyrolysis” of end-of-life tires (ELTs) at its plant in Seki city, Gifu Prefecture, Japan.

To be built in an area of over 15,000 sq.m., the unit will have the capacity to chemically process 7.5 kilotonnes per annum (ktpa) of waste tires and is set for operation in 2027.

The plant is being constructed under Bridgestone’s ‘Evertire’ joint initiative with Eneos Corp., which focuses on producing tire raw materials from ELTs, said the Japanese group 21 Oct.

The new pilot plant, the group said, will play “an integral role” in Bridgestone’s strategy of early adoption of “tire-to-tire horizontal recycling.”

At the pilot plant, Bridgestone will conduct technology demonstrations to establish chemical recycling technologies that recover tire-derived oil (TPO) and recovered carbon black (rCB) from waste tires through “precise pyrolysis.”

The process, it explained, involves “controlling detailed conditions such as temperature and time” in the process of pyrolysis to recover “high-quality oil and carbon black.”

Eneos will use the TPO in the manufacture chemical products such as butadiene, a key raw material for synthetic rubber.

Together with rCB, these materials will be circulated back into tire production.

Additionally, rCB produced at the unit will be utilised in another joint research programme – with Tokai Carbon – to produce “eco carbon black” with rubber reinforcement properties “equivalent to those of virgin carbon black.”

Bridgestone has been working on developing chemical recycling processes for waste tires since 2022.

In 2023, the group introduced a test unit at the Bridgestone Innovation Park (BIP) in Kodaira city, Tokyo, where it began precise pyrolysis testing.

Building on these “foundational technologies,” the group said it now aims to establish scale-up technologies for the mass production of tire-derived oil and rCB.