10th August 2009
Used tyre recycling plant from MeWa is put into operation in Kazakhstan
Plant produces active fine powder for road construction
The first recycling plant for old tyres in Kazakhstan was recently put into operation. Germany-based MeWa Recycling Maschinen und Anlagenbau GmbH supplied the Central Asian country with the entire processing line ready for operation. Kazakhstan Rubber Recycling will in future be producing a clean rubber granulate and an active fine powder (ActiMeWa) for use in road construction.
Long roads and great differences in temperature between the winter and summer months pose a special challenge for road construction in Kazakhstan. The active fine powder produced by the new plant can in future be added to the bitumen and thus substantially increase the quality and lifetime of the asphalt.
The highly modern plant was inaugurated at the beginning of July in the national capital of Astana with participation from government representatives. The privately owned Kazakhstan Rubber Recycling will process around 11,000 of used HGV and car tyres per year using plant technology from MeWa.
The complete tyres with a diameter of up to 1.5 metres will initially be fed into a MeWa UC 150 rotary shear. The machine breaks the tyres up into approximately palm-sized shreds with the patented and low-wear cutting system. Throughputs of up to seven tonnes per hour are possible here. A granulation line from MeWa then gradually breaks these shreds down into a granular size of around eight millimetres. After each work step, different separation techniques then separate the textiles, stones and steel cord that the tyres contain.
Granulators that are integrated into a sophisticated final cleaning process grind the granulate down further into grain sizes of between 0 to 4 millimetres. MeWa has optimised this process step in the last few years and offers granulates here in hitherto unmatched purities. 99.95% by weight of the secondary raw material is free of steel and textile lint at the end of the processing chain. This granulate is used for the production of floors in sports facilities and children’s playgrounds, rubber mats for housing and agriculture, and for moulded part products in road and garden.
Currently, the plant is being extended to include a special fine grinding process. A fine grinding stage developed by MeWa then processes the granulate further into the ActiMeWa. The flexible fine rubber powder will in future be used in road construction. It will not only compensate for differences in temperature but the active powder will also considerably reduce the noise level of the road surface and offer substantially more grip for vehicles, even in the rain.
The first section of the plant was transported by rail to Kazakhstan back in the autumn of 2008. This was followed in the spring of 2009 by the granulate cleaning unit.
In order to be able to guarantee smooth and efficient delivery and construction in Kazakhstan the complete plant was built in a one of MeWa’s warehouses in Gechingen and then disassembled and put into standard freight containers for onward delivery. The modules could then be reassembled on site piece by piece similar to a construction kit.