Rethinking tire recycling: Effective separation before shredding

London - With structures combining vulcanized rubber with steel wires, textile cords, fillers, and additives, end-of-life tires are difficult to recycle, especially when it comes to separating the rubber from the reinforcing material.

Most conventional tire recycling systems begin with intensive mechanical shredding: tires are cut, granulated, and milled through several stages until rubber, steel, and textile fractions can be separated.

But this approach is energy-intensive, causes equipment wear, and often leaves the recovered rubber contaminated with residual steel or textile fibres, which can limit performance and reduce the commercial value of the recycled material.

3R Technology, an Israel-based startup, is developing a different process sequence. Instead of starting with aggressive shredding, the company uses controlled ozone-enriched gas treatment to weaken the bond between the rubber matrix and the reinforcing materials.

The process treats whole in a dry, closed chamber at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure. Ozone is generated on site from air and introduced under controlled conditions, making it easier to mechanically separate rubber from steel wire and textile reinforcement.

By loosening the rubber structure before intensive mechanical processing, the system aims to reduce the force, energy, and number of processing steps required to recover usable rubber.

Cleaner separation can reduce the amount of steel and textile contamination in the recovered rubber fraction and improve the quality and consistency of rubber crumbs and chips.

Also, it can support downstream devulcanisation, because the rubber is recovered before being thermally destroyed or heavily degraded.

Unlike pyrolysis, which converts tires into oil, gas, and carbon residue, the new process preserves the rubber: after separation, the recovered rubber can undergo devulcanisation to restore processability and enable reuse in compounds.

This creates a pathway from end-of-life tires back into industrial rubber applications rather than into fuel or low-value residue streams. 

At the current development stage, the separation station has removed up to 40% of the total mass of a passenger car tire during the separation stage - a significant recovered rubber fraction under prototype conditions.

The company has also produced devulcanised rubber samples and incorporated recovered material into rubber sheets in lab testing.

The process is designed as a non-thermal and non-combustion system. Residual ozone is routed to a destruction unit and decomposed back into oxygen before release.

For the tire recycling industry, the main significance is the possibility of improving material recovery at the front end of the process.

Effective separation determines the value of every downstream product and can reduce processing complexity, improve material purity, and open the door to higher-value reuse.

3R Technology is currently positioned at lab and prototype validation stage, with pilot-scale deployment as the next step. A planned pilot line will be used to validate continuous operation, define process parameters, establish full mass balance, and assess the repeatability of rubber purity and separation performance.

The company is seeking strategic partners, pilot hosts, industrial collaborators, and investors to support the next stage of development. These could include tire recyclers, rubber product makers, waste-management companies, and relevant industrial groups.