Professors Mandal and Smotkin conduct collaborative research on the synthesis and characteriztion of solid polymer electrolytes, nonflammable liquid electrolytes and fuel cell membranes. Back to top Rubber Recycling Used tires represent one of the major solid waste streams. Approximately 250 million tires are discarded annually, in addition to about 2 billion scrap tires already stockpiled across the United States. To recycle or dispose of the tires in a manner which is economically feasible and environmentally acceptable has been a challenge that requires further research and development. The major issue with incineration is particulate air pollutants and CO2 emission, which, similar to carbon and fossil fuel, affects climate change.
Pyrolysis also has limited commercial application due to economic and technical barriers.
This process is usually not economically feasible because of the cost associated with the use of liquid nitrogen needed for cryogenic processes. SSSE process produces rubber powders at ambient temperatures and, at the same time, partially devulcanizes the rubber particles due to breakage of the majority of sulfur crosslinks under high shear and compression. Thus, this process is not only expected to be more economical than the cryogenic process, but also provides produced rubber materials with similar properties to the original rubber, since no chemical compounds are added during devulcanization. The rubber particles may also be used as fillers in asphalt or in the manufacturing of tires. Powder coating technology has been considered the major innovation to address the elimination of solvents in coating applications.