Continental develops Innovative Recycling Machine for Rubberised Steel Cord
Continental has developed a new approach to recycling rubberised steel cord scrap – a by-product of its tyre production. The device, called the “Hurricane Machine” makes it possible to separate uncured rubber compound and steel cord, a development which marks yet another step in Continental’s pursuit of making tyre production more sustainable.
This recycling process, which marks a world first for the tyre industry, was developed by Dr. Martin Theusner, a Continental veteran and former Head of Environmental Protection at the Commercial Vehicle Tyres business unit. “Every year, we have to deal with significant amounts of rubberised steel cord scrap in our plants around the world. Instead of declaring them as waste, we were looking for a sustainable solution that would preserve the valuable raw materials,” remarks Theusner.
Since the material is uncured, the separation of rubber and steel cord is achieved by applying mechanical force. Once the rubber has been granulated, a series of high-powered magnets remove any remaining pieces of steel from the compound. The steel is sold for recycling outside the company and the rubber compound can be reused in Continental’s plants to produce Continental commercial tyres, including the latest Generation 3 Continental bus and coach tyres.
“While we are constantly working on optimising our production process, it was a nice change of pace to develop a solution for the unavoidable rubber scrap. This solution allows us to further improve our material handling in terms of raw material usage and contributes to making our production processes increasingly ‘eco-friendly’,” commented Thierry Wipff, Head of Manufacturing Commercial Vehicle Tyres at Continental. For the development of the Hurricane Machine, Continental cooperated with a specialised manufacturer of recycling equipment. The machine, which is located at Continental’s production site in Puchov (Slovakia), is already processing uncured rubber scrap from most of Continental’s European manufacturing sites.