| Summary: | The ever growing focus on environmental issues has raised concerns about scrap tires, whose major component - vulcanized rubber - does not degrade easily. When burned, tires release toxic gases containing substantial amounts of sulfur and ammonia in addition to other pollutants. Dumped on empty city lots, tires are also a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Many proposals have been put forward to handle the disposal of scrap tires, but none of them have proved to offer a definitive solution. The study reported here investigated the production of fuel oil and activated carbon from the pyrolysis of scrap tires. The initial mass of rubber yielded approximately 46% of oil, 40% of activated carbon and 14% of gases. The resulting activated carbon displayed a specific surface area of 200 m².g-1.
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