Optimus Manufacturers, a startup company based in Hyderabad in India, has launched its crumb rubber product at T-Hub in Hyderabad as it aims to make rubberised roads a reality in the country. The company plans to sell its product to road contractors.
Apart from roads, Optimus says that crumb rubber can also be used in various areas like in children’s playground, sports surfaces, geotechnical/asphalt applications, adhesives and sealants, shock absorption and safety products.
It has set up a 10,000 square feet manufacturing facility in Patancheru in Hyderabad where it will process scrap tyres into crumb rubber.
Scrap tyres will be imported from countries like Israel. The excess waste like steel will be extracted from the scrap tyres, which will then be washed and ground to produce fine powder, granules and rubber blocks. These can be used in different sections across industries.
“Rubberised roads is one use case where fine crumb powder is diluted and mixed with bitumen. We intend to make it a mixture of 20% rubber and 80% bitumen. We will manufacture the product for contractors as third-party vendors and are also giving a 10-year guarantee that these roads will not develop bumps, cracks and holes,” says Aloysious Dsouza, founder and managing director of Optimus.
While the company is only in the process of starting operations, it is talking to several contractors in and around Hyderabad and is even speaking with the Telangana government to test out rubberized roads.
It will begin manufacturing crumb rubber next month.
T-Hub startup Nucleus Tech is the technology partner for Optimus and is working with the startup to make its operations seamless.
“We are taking care of software solutions for them, reports that will need to be generated and all other technical support. Additionally, since we have some contacts in the Telangana government, we will be their operational partners. Meaning, we will be helping them with permissions required from the government and in dealing with all legalities involved,” says B Yashwanth Reddy, managing director of Nucleus Tech.
Rubberised roads are used extensively in the highway paving industry in the US, particularly in the states of Arizona, California and Texas.
The first attempt to modify bituminous binders by adding rubber was made in 1898 by Gauedmberg, who patented a process for manufacturing rubber bitumen. France was then given credit for installing the first road with a rubberised bituminous surfacing material.
In India, is has so far only been used in Kerala for the Ernakulam – Muvattupuzha road. This was done to help out over 1 million natural rubber growers across Kerala who were struggling.
In fact, the United Planters Association of Southern India (UPASI) also has urged the Centre to consider rubber bituminised roads for the future construction of national highways and has made this suggestion to road transport & highways minister Nitin Gadkari.
However, there have been many reservations over rubberised roads due to some of the challenges it poses like melting of roads under hot temperatures in the country. Dsouza said this is the reason why the company will only use 20% in the mixtures compared to the 50-50 ratio of bitumen and rubber mixture used in European countries.