Decarbonisation Technology - November 2022

marine fuel for blending, and at the same time producing a recovered carbon black (rCB) for reuse in the tyre manufacturing process, creating a circular economy. Supplying the naphtha to petrochemicals to make new tyres or green plastics also supports a circular economy. The planned facility will be capable of processing up to 155,000 tonnes of tyres per year, using five pyrolysis reactor trains, making it the largest tyre pyrolysis facility in the UK. To help deliver the project, Petrofac, a leading international engineering and construction (EPC) service provider, is undertaking the engineering FEED contract to design the plant and develop a turn-key engineering, procurement and construction contract. Having previously delivered pyrolysis plants at scale, thyssenkrupp * has been engaged to deliver the pyrolysis technology and brings extensive experience in the oil and gas sector. mulched, and the tyre mulch is then fed into the thyssenkrupp pyrolysis system. This process heats the feedstock in an oxygen-free atmosphere, so there is no combustion, thermally decomposing the mulch into solid, liquid, and gas phases. Tyre-derived oil (TDO) is separated and extensively treated using proprietary technology to remove solids and other contaminants before being treated in a dedicated on-site hydroprocessing plant to refine and enhance the properties of the oil products, enabling the diesel product to meet UK diesel standards. Testing calculations show 85% savings in GHG emissions compared to fossil diesel, easily surpassing the 65% GHG threshold required for development fuels under UK legislation (UK Gov, 2007). The process At the facility, tyres will be shredded and The hydroprocessing removes sulphur and other contaminants from the oil before it is separated into various product streams. This process will produce diesel, naphtha, and marine fuel, each containing significant biogenic fractions derived from the natural rubber used in tyre production. The heaviest product stream is a ultra low- sulphur marine fuel blending component, which will help reduce emissions in the hard-to- decarbonise marine sector as it looks to transition to net carbon zero fuels.

Utilising waste feedstocks, we can make a significant positive environmental impact and contribution to the circular economy by creating value through developing solutions to reduce carbon emissions and waste overall. Repurposing waste products also reduces our reliance on the current approaches of adding to landfill, exporting wastes, or using waste to generate electricity. Our experience in efficiently delivering products of this kind ensures that these potential renewable solutions can be adopted at scale with security of supply and domestic production. Renewables from waste tyres One of the projects we are actively developing utilises the traditionally environmentally troublesome waste stream of end-of-life tyres as a feedstock. Every year, some 1.5 billion tyres worldwide come to the end of their useful lives (Williams, 2017), and this will not change with the switch to electric vehicles. Tyres are difficult to recycle and are non-biodegradable. As such, a new approach is required to deal with the waste tyres thrown away and in need of disposal each year. In the UK, some 55 million waste tyres are disposed of annually, either by burning them here in the UK or exporting them, and this is not a sustainable or responsible solution when considering the valuable products that are intrinsically held in this waste stream (Hartnell, 2022). With a site in Teesside under development and the engineering FEED phase underway, Greenergy’s Green Tyre Technology (GTT) project is integrating conventional, commercially proven processes and technologies to transform tyres into transport fuels such as lower carbon diesel as well as carbon black that can be reused in tyre production. This large-scale project will create a significant environmental improvement compared to the current disposal of waste tyres. The plant will utilise existing and proven technologies from world-renowned partners to produce a waste- to-value solution based on years of development and testing to prove each aspect and the process as a whole. The GTT project will recycle waste tyres from the UK market and create valuable end- use materials, including advanced diesel, naphtha for advanced gasoline blending or as a petrochemical feedstock, low-sulphur