Abstract
Improper disposal and storage of waste tires poses a serious threat to the environment and human health. In light of the drawbacks of the current disposal methods for waste tires, the transformation of waste material into valuable membranes has received significant attention from industries and the academic field. This study proposes an efficient and sustainable method to utilize reclaimed rubber from waste tires after devulcanization, as a precursor for thermally rearranged (TR) membranes. The reclaimed rubber collected from local markets was characterized by thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) and Fourier transfer infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis. The results revealed that the useable rubber in the as-received sample amounted to 57% and was classified as styrene–butadiene rubber, a type of synthetic rubber. Moreover, the gas separation measurements showed that the C7-P2.8-T250 membrane with the highest H2/CO2 selectivity of 4.0 and sufficient hydrogen permeance of 1124.61 GPU exhibited the Knudsen diffusion mechanism and crossed the Robeson trade-off limit. These findings demonstrate that reclaimed rubber is an appealing, cost effective, and sustainable alternative, as a precursor for TR membranes, for application in gas separation. The present approach is useful in the selection of a suitable reclaimed rubber precursor and related membrane preparation parameters, leading to the advancement in the recycling value of waste tires.
Highlights
Rapid population growth and industrialization are responsible for the significant increase in production and accumulation of solid waste
Prior to heating to a temperature of 700 ◦ C, commercial styrene–butadiene rubber (SBR) suffered the greatest weight loss and decomposed completely at approximately 500 ◦ C, which suggests that its whole composition consisted of polymer, that is, rubber
The primary weight-loss was observed at approximately 350 ◦ C, while the secondary weight loss was at approximately 750 ◦ C, which implied at least two different compositions existing in the reclaimed rubber sample
Summary
Rapid population growth and industrialization are responsible for the significant increase in production and accumulation of solid waste. Advances in the automobile industry and increased use of vehicular modes of transport have led to an increase in the number of waste tires [1]. The global annual consumption of tires is up to 1 billion units [2,3]. The consumption rate of tires is expected to grow exponentially with their demand growing in developing countries. In Taiwan, the annual recovery market for waste tires is approximately 100 thousand tonnes, reaching approximately 140 thousand tonnes in 2017 according to the statistics of Environmental Protection. The most prevalent disposal methods for waste tires include landfilling and using them as auxiliary fuel for energy recovery [5,6]
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