The first step in tire recycling is shredding the tires. The shredding process cuts waste tires into smaller, more manageable pieces.
What is used to shred tires?
Tire shredding is typically done using specialized recycling equipment, such as a rotary tire shear shredder. A rotary shear shredder works by using the motion between rotating blades to shear solid waste.
This type of shredder usually employs a low-speed, high-torque dual-shaft or quad-shaft design, effectively handling large or elastic materials such as tires and cables.
During the tire shredding process, the rotary shear shredder utilizes its high torque and slow operation to apply shearing force evenly to the tire, thus breaking it into smaller pieces.
The advantages of this shredder are its directional crushing effect, its ability to consistently achieve high crushing density, and the ease of replacement of wearing parts, making it suitable for continuous operation.
Choosing the Right Tire Shredder
Choosing the right tire shredder is the first step in tire shredding. First, determine the material the tire shredder will process, the expected capacity, and the output size based on actual needs. This step is fundamental to selecting equipment and ensuring that the chosen equipment meets production needs.
Next, you need to select the appropriate type of shredder based on the material characteristics and processing requirements. For example, if you need to process large truck tires, you should choose a tire shredder with a larger processing capacity. Double shaft shredder are suitable for efficiently processing hard or large tires. Four-shaft shredders are suitable for efficient, small-batch shredding needs.
Choose manufacturers with years of experience and strong technical capabilities; they can usually provide more mature and reliable products. Also, understand the equipment materials, manufacturing processes, and performance parameters offered by the manufacturer, such as crushing capacity, energy consumption, and noise levels.
Tire Shredding Steps
In the tire shredding process, the tires first need to be sorted to remove foreign objects that may interfere with the recycling process, such as metal wires and textile fibers. Using equipment such as tire separators, steel wires are stripped from the waste tires. These waste steel wires can be sold as general industrial solid waste for comprehensive utilization.
Next, a rotary shredder or other tire pre-shredding equipment is used to shred the tires into palm-sized fragments. These fragments are then fed into a fine grinder for further crushing into pure particles. In multiple stages of the crushing process, magnets can be used to separate steel wires to ensure the purity of the rubber granules.
Electromagnetic separation technology can be used to remove metal components during crushing. Electromagnetic separators effectively separate steel wires and rubber granules, thus ensuring the quality of the final product.
To remove textile fibers, vibrating screens and pneumatic fluid separation technology can be used. These methods separate textile fibers from rubber granules, resulting in purer rubber granules.
Some advanced crushing methods also include freezing tires with liquid nitrogen. At low temperatures, rubber blocks are fed into a crusher for high-speed impact crushing. Because the low temperature makes the rubber brittle, the rubber blocks are easily crushed into coarse rubber powder. Most metal and fiber impurities are also separated at this stage.
The crushed rubber fragments can be further processed into products for various applications, such as rubber asphalt, sports track surfaces, and playground paving. In addition, these rubber fragments can also be used as raw materials for fuel or other industrial applications.
