Brenntag, the global market leader in chemical and ingredients distribution, and RubberJet Valley, an Italian rubber recycling group, have entered into a distribution agreement for the technical development and commercialisation of rubber granules and powder produced from large end-of-life tyres (ELTs).
“This agreement is strategic for our rubber business in EMEA,” says Jose Manuel Calavia Cruz, Business Director Rubber EMEA, “as we increase the offers in our comprehensive product and service portfolio as well as individual and sustainable solutions to move further into a circular economy. With this cooperation, we are happy to offer our customers a new, sustainable solution coming from circular economy for new market demands in the rubber industry”.
RubberJet Valley specialises in using a proprietary, environmentally friendly technology, a high-pressure water-jet process, to produce polymer granules and powder out of large ELTs from trucks and Off The Road (OTR) tyres from tractors and mining vehicles. Those large and giant tyres are broken down into individual parts by a process using high-pressure water-jets, which in addition gives the recycled materials an especially large and active surface structure that lets the recycled polymers be vulcanised again. This makes it possible to obtain sustainable and high-quality powder based on carbon black and high content of natural rubber, which can replace natural or synthetic rubber in new compounds.
“With our innovative technology, we’re opening a totally new opportunity for the rubber industry, allowing the companies that belong to this field to use recycled but still very high-quality polymers to replace natural or synthetic rubber within the new tire compounds and more generally in all rubber applications using synthetic or natural rubber. Clients, who would like to achieve environmental benefits as well as savings from using 100% green material, will profit from the cooperation with Brenntag. We look forward to reaching out to more clients around the world who are interested in becoming our green partners,” says Tommaso Verri, CEO of RubberJet Valley.
“With the overall continuous growth in demand for rubber, the expansion of natural rubber processing sector is becoming a serious environmental issue. Medium and large tyres are currently made mostly of natural rubber deriving from rubber trees. This precious raw material has been included in the list of ‘Critical Raw Materials’ by the European Union. Today, the EU is 100% dependent of natural rubber coming mainly from Asia. For a more sustainable and circular process, changing this is key. By boosting the commercialization of products made of recycled rubber, Brenntag and RubberJet are helping to reduce the deforestation rate allowing the rubber companies to have a real alternative and sustainable product to the original virgin materials,” says Andreas Kicherer, Vice President Sustainability Brenntag.