News from Notch Consulting, Inc.

December 4, 2019

Cooper & Sailun produce first tire at new plant in Vietnam

Filed under: Tires — Notch @ 12:27 am

Cooper Tire & Rubber and Sailun Vietnam Co., Ltd. recently celebrated production of a first tire at ACTR, their new joint venture facility located near Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Cooper owns 35 percent of ACTR, which will produce truck and bus radial (TBR) tires for global markets. The ceremonial first tire was the centerpiece of a special event held at the facility on Nov. 18 to celebrate construction of the plant.

The plant is expected to be operational and producing tires on a commercial level by early 2020. At full capacity, production is expected to be approximately 2 million tires annually.

 

Kal Tire opens OTR tire retread plant in Mexico

Filed under: Tires — Notch @ 12:07 am

Tire Business reports that Canada-based Kal Tire, one of North America’s largest commercial tire dealers, has opened an OTR tire retreading facility in Canancea, Mexico in order to supply a number of open-pit copper mines in northwest Mexico. Kal Tire operates four other earthmover tire retreading facilities located in Vernon, British Columbia; Alfreton, England; Accra, Ghana; and La Negra, Chile.

The new OTR retread plant is the company’s first to use a robot for skiving and tread grooving, improving access to custom tread designs to best suit each site’s conditions. This technology was developed in collaboration with Marangoni Group’s Tyre Retreading Machinery (TRM) business, which is based in Trento, Italy.

The 32,300-square-foot factory is designed to process tires with rim diameters up to 63 inches. Current capacity is 80 tires per month initially, but capacity can be increased to meet demand. The factory employs 40 workers. The cost of the investment was not disclosed.

November 28, 2019

PolyOne introduces new color concentrate using recovered carbon black

Filed under: Carbon Black, Recovered Carbon Black, Uncategorized — Notch @ 11:25 pm

Plastics News has a writeup on PolyOne’s latest product introductions based on sustainable materials, including the following:

OnColor-brand Recovered Carbon Environmental Black. A new color concentrate derived from end-of-life tires, which officials said is a sustainable alternative to those based on virgin carbon black. The material creates a smaller carbon footprint than virgin carbon black because it uses 90 percent less water and 61 percent less electricity while emitting 90 percent less carbon dioxide in its manufacturing process, officials said.

November 26, 2019

Bridgestone brings first at-scale use of recovered carbon black to tire market

Filed under: Carbon Black, Recovered Carbon Black, Tires, Uncategorized — Notch @ 1:49 am

On November 20, Bridgestone Americas, Inc. announced the industry’s first at-scale use of recovered carbon black (rCB) in the tire market as part of its long-standing partnership with Delta-Energy Group, LLC.

The move to at-scale commercialization of D-E Black®, Delta-Energy Group’s proprietary rCB product recovered from EOL tires, marks a significant milestone in achieving Bridgestone Group’s long-term environmental vision of targeting 100% sustainable materials – and contributing to a reduction of over 50% CO2 emissions – by the year 2050 and beyond. The process by Delta-Energy Group to extract materials produces 81% less CO2 per ton as compared to virgin carbon black. The investment also serves Bridgestone’s larger mission to drive toward a circular economy that eliminates waste through the continual use of resources, according to the company.

Bridgestone began evaluating Delta-Energy’s materials in 2007 and became an equity partner in late 2014. Since that time, the use of D-E Black as a partial replacement for vCB in new tires has undergone extensive testing to ensure compliance with the high standards and superior quality and performance for which Bridgestone tires are known. To date, Bridgestone has purchased approximately 235 metric tons of rCB, the equivalent of more than 70,000 EOL tires, resulting in the reduction of approximately 765,000 pounds of CO2 emissions, compared to using vCB. By the end of 2020, Bridgestone plans to increase the use of D-E Black to 6,800 metric tons, equivalent to about 2 million EOL tires and a reduction of about 24 million pounds of carbon emissions.

Bob Genovese, Delta-Energy CEO, said in the press release that Delta-Energy has plans to build several more plants in North America over the next few years to produce D-E Black. Bridgestone is using D-E Black in high-quality tires for agriculture and passenger applications across multiple plants in the Americas, including the Bridgestone Des Moines Agriculture Tire Plant, Aiken County Passenger Tire Plant, and the Bridgestone Cuernavaca Tire Plant. The company is currently evaluating new opportunities to expand its usage of D-E Black into additional plants and product lines.

Cabot relocating Georgia office to Latvia

Filed under: Carbon Black — Notch @ 1:37 am

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that Cabot Corp. is planning to layoff staff at its office in Alpharetta, GA and move those functions to a shared service center in Riga, Latvia. Cabot filed a notice with the Georgia Department of Labor announcing that it plans to cut 67 jobs at the Alpharetta office. “The first layoffs at this location are expected to start on January 17, 2020. Additional layoffs will take place between then and September 25, 2020,” the company said. A list of the positions being eliminated is available here.

European Carbon Black Summit scheduled for Frankfurt

Filed under: Carbon Black — Notch @ 1:20 am

ACI’s 2nd European Carbon Black Summit has been scheduled for Frankfurt, Germany on 24 & 25 June 2020. The two day event will bring together the senior representatives of the different stakeholders involved in the carbon black sector from producers, technology developers, rubber producers, chemical suppliers, researchers, as well as other influential stakeholders from the value chain. This is a new conference covering the carbon black industry — the first one was held in London in June 2019.

 

Cabot breaks ground on Indonesian carbon black expansion

Filed under: Carbon Black — Notch @ 1:10 am

On Nov. 21, Cabot announced the groundbreaking for a previously announced carbon black capacity expansion project in Cilegon, Indonesia. This phase of the project will add approximately 80,000 metric tons of additional annual production capacity and is expected to be completed in 2021. The expansion in Cilegon is part of a global capacity expansion and debottlenecking project announced in May 2018. Cabot has made significant progress towards its stated goal of expanding global carbon black manufacturing capacity by 300,000 metric tons.

 

November 18, 2019

Birla Carbon and CHASM Advanced Materials announce carbon nanomaterials joint development agreement

Filed under: Carbon Black, Uncategorized — Notch @ 11:03 pm

On November 18, Birla Carbon (Mumbai, India & Marietta, GA) and CHASM Advanced Materials Inc. (Canton, MA) announced a new joint development agreement focused on the development of novel nanomaterials to benefit various market segments including high-performance tires, novel coatings and next-generation batteries. CHASM Advanced Materials is a producer of printed electronics materials and battery materials based on proprietary carbon nanotube and ink/coating technologies. 

Through this joint development agreement, the two companies will share research and engineering resources to develop and manufacture hybrid nanomaterials based on carbon substrates and carbon nanotubes. These hybrid nanomaterials will combine CHASM’s nanotube enhanced carbon (NTeC) technology with Birla Carbon’s expertise in commercialization and manufacturing. In so doing, the companies anticipate jointly developing novel carbon nanomaterials tailored for performance in a wide variety of demanding applications.

Here is the press release.

November 13, 2019

Pyrolyx secures 5-year rCB supply agreement with Continental

Filed under: Carbon Black, Recovered Carbon Black — Notch @ 9:43 am

Continental A.G. and waste tire pyrolysis company Pyrolyx A.G. have signed a five-year contract for Pyrolyx to supply Continental with recovered carbon black (rCB) for use in tire production. The agreement calls for Pyrolyx to deliver up to 10,000 metric tons of rCB annually to Continental’s tire plants worldwide, according to a joint press release.

“Continental is excited to be entering this long-term relationship with Pyrolyx as it underlines our commitment to improving the sustainability of our products and operations. We are committed to innovative, environmentally beneficial technologies for our customers, while ensuring our tires meet the highest levels of safety performance,” said Dr. Andreas Topp, Vice President Material and Process Development and Industrialization at Continental.

Pyrolyx’s USA CEO, Thomas Redd, said, “This supply agreement is an extremely positive development for Pyrolyx and validates our approach to the recovery of carbon black from end-of-life tires and the acceptance of rCB globally. The validation of Pyrolyx’s rCB is a ‘game changer’ for Pyrolyx and the recovered carbon black industry.”

October 7, 2019

Orion introduces fuel-saving carbon black for tires

Filed under: Carbon Black — Notch @ 6:51 pm

Orion Engineered Carbons S.A. is presenting a new surface-modified carbon black for rubber applications at the 196th Technical Meeting of the Rubber Division of the American Chemical Society in Cleveland, Ohio on October 9, 2019. The meeting is part of the International Elastomer Conference (IEC), which provides a forum for the exchange of ideas, observations, regulatory reforms and emerging scientific technologies.

The paper is titled “Surface Modified Carbon Black for Modern Low Rolling Resistance Tires” and will be presented by Dr. Hauke Westenberg, Compounding Manager from Orion’s Innovation Group. According to Orion, the new carbon black filler system significantly reduces the energy loss of a tire tread compound and therefore the tire rolling resistance. This increases fuel efficiency and reduces the tire’s carbon footprint.

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