The first step in tire recycling is shredding. Shredding involves cutting used tires into smaller, more manageable pieces.
What is used to shred tires?
Tire shredding is typically accomplished using specialized recycling equipment, such as a tire shredder. A rotary shear shredder uses the motion between rotating blades to shear solid waste.
These shredders typically utilize a low-speed, high-torque, two- or four-shaft design, effectively processing bulky or elastic materials such as tires and cables.
During the tire shredding process, a rotary shear shredder utilizes its high torque and slow operation to apply uniform shear force to the tire, breaking it into smaller pieces.
The advantages of this shredder include targeted shredding, consistent high shredding results, and easy replacement of wear parts, making it suitable for continuous operation.
Choosing the Right Tire Shredder
Choosing the right tire shredder is the first step in shredding tires. First, determine the tire shredder's construction material, expected capacity, and output size based on your specific needs. This step forms the basis for equipment selection, ensuring it meets your production needs.
Next, you need to select the appropriate shredder type based on the material characteristics and processing requirements. For example, if you need to process large truck tires, you should choose tire shredding equipment with a larger capacity. A dual-shaft shredder is suitable for efficiently processing hard or large tires. A quad-shaft shredder is suitable for efficient, smaller shredding needs.
Choosing a manufacturer with years of experience and strong technical expertise generally provides more mature and reliable products. Also, understand the equipment's materials and manufacturing processes, as well as the manufacturer's performance specifications, such as shredding capacity, energy consumption, and noise level.
Tire Shredding Steps
During the shredding process, tires are first sorted to remove any foreign material, such as metal wire and textile fibers, that could interfere with the recycling process. Equipment such as a tire bead separator removes the steel wire from the scrap tires. The scrap steel wire can then be sold as general industrial solid waste for further recycling.
Next, a rotary shredder or other tire pre-shredding equipment is used to shred the tires into palm-sized pieces, which are then further pulverized into pure particles using a fine grinding shredder. At various stages of the shredding process, magnets can be used to separate steel wire to ensure the purity of the rubber granules.
During the shredding process, electromagnetic separation can be used to remove metal components. Electromagnetic separators effectively separate steel wire from rubber granules, ensuring the quality of the final product.
To remove textile fibers, vibrating screens and airflow separation techniques can be used. These methods separate textile fibers from rubber granules, resulting in purer rubber granules.
Some advanced shredding methods also involve freezing tires with liquid nitrogen. At this low temperature, the rubber blocks are fed into a shredder for high-speed impact pulverization. Because the low temperature makes the rubber brittle, the rubber blocks are easily pulverized into coarse rubber powder. Most metal and fiber impurities are separated at this stage.
The shredded rubber shreds can be further processed into various products, such as rubber asphalt, sports track surfacing, and athletic field coverings. Furthermore, these rubber shreds can be used as fuel or as a raw material for other industrial applications.
In addition, this series of shredders can also be integrated with conveyor belts, secondary crushers, wire separators, nylon separators, grinders and other machines to achieve automated, rationalized and labor-saving operations, effectively reducing workers' labor intensity and improving the working environment.
