Evening star., 1942-06-21
AGED Rubber Absorbs
MerciIess Beating in
RecIaiming Process
Cut, Shredded, Cooked,
Rolled, 1t Comes Out
With New Residence
BY HOWARD w. BLAKESLEE,
Wide World Science Editor.


Wide World Science Editor.
NEW YORK, June 20.-The first
of the national scrap rubber COL
lection arrived today at Naugatuck,
Conn, to be converted into re-
claimed rubber.
The machines started rolling.
Hugh knives chopped tires into
half -doughnuts. Small knives and
magnets extracted bits of metal
from rubber heels. Digesters took
old girdles and dissolved out the
fabric.
Rubber, rubber everywhere, and
not a scrap of it lost-that was the
prospect. But to do this, an indus
try which has reclaimed mostly only
old tires and tubes had to build or
adapt new machines.
The processes carried the scrap
rubber through long lines starting
on the main floor. Up to the roof
and down again, and finally work.
men peeled from big drums the fin
ished product, huge, fiat, thick
sheets of pure rubber.
So pure that even before we got
into the war Az pounds of this re-
claim was mixed with every 10
pounds Of new, raw rubber.
On this purity, and on the still
unknown volume to come from scrap
collection, rest many of the i'm
portant answers to the rubber
shortage.
What started in Naugatuck today
was duplicated, or will be in few
more DAYS, in go other places in the
United States. Those are the loca-
tions of seven big companies which
reclaim II per cent of all old rub
ber. and so smaller concerns.
Capacity Now 35o,O0O Tons.
Their total capacity, on Pearl Har-
Dor Day, was about 100000 tons of
reclaimed rubber a year, half Of
our peacetime raw rubber use. Now
1t is around 350,000 tons.
But more than half the mouths
of the big reclaim machines have
been empty. due to lack of scrap be-
fore the present drive began.
Reclaiming old rubber is half me-
chanical, half chemical.
Follow the old tire: 1t rides on a
moving platform, just tire wide
with hundreds of others to a
gauntleted workman. With one hand
and a firm grip he guides it over
sharp knives which slice it in two
the half-doughnuts.
Another workman picks up the
halves, and one by one holds the
cut edges so that the bead, the
metal rod or wire at the edges of
the casing. is bitten by rotating
knives. Automatically they shear
out this bead.
The cebeaded doughnut is dropped
upon another conveyor, to ride into
chopper. This is huge high
speed drum, its face studded with
sharp knives Out of the drum
comes shredded tire, but not yet
ready for cooking.
First it drops into a machine
called the cracker. This is a mill
which grinds the shredded pieces,
long or short. into small pieces, like
coarse gravel and little sticks.
Magnet Pulls Out Metal.
These ride another belt to the
roof. On the way they pass over
a powerful magnet. If any old nail,
tack, ne adle or other metal, is stick
ing in the tires, the magnet draws
the bits out and let's them drop like
rain into a scrap metal pile.
Then or the roof, the rubber
pours into big, cylindrical, narrow
toed bins. Nobody shovels out these
bins. A big mechanical blower
stands ongside each, and blows the
cracked rubber out over a chute.
The rubber bits drop into the
chute by gravity, down to floors
below. Dust and dirt go up a flue.
The cracked rubber drops into a
chemical bath, called the digester.
The rough treatment the old tire
got up to now was nothing compared
with what the digester does
For old tires the digester is main
ly caustic soda. This chemical eats
the cotton fabric out of the tire
carcass. Other chemicals are in
cluded, varying according to special
problems depending on nature or
source of the rubber products.
Liable to Digestive Ills.
This digeSter is particular, like an
epicure. If it gets too much. there
Is rubber tire indigestion. So the
cracked rubber just before enter
ing the digester falls. on a scale
which weighs out each bite. The
digesters sit in rows for their rub
Der meals. and the scale moves
along, driven by motor, on a track
which permits it to stop and dump
its selected dose into each chemical
mouth.
Next come the devulcanizers-
steaming, big round metal barrels.
each the diameter of a tall mans
height.
Then the rubber is screened and
washed with water. The water is
squeezed out in a big wringer and
the slices run into continuous hot
drying machine.
The next step is much like the
start of mashed potatoes. The bits
of rubber, all sizes. are forced by
screws through a screen. The rub
Der comes out like strings of gargan-
tuan, black sphagetti Knives cut
these strings in lengths of one to
two inches.
Now the final step: These uniform
pieces are fed into a refiner which
heats up the mass and rolls it out
in the finished sheets of reclaimed
rubber.
The reclaim men believe they can
handle all sorts of scrap rubber 1t
is largely matter like sorting food
the beans in one pile, potatoes in
another, meat in a third.
High Recovery Assured.
For each the seasoning will differ,
and the cooking, too. but so long as
the same basic process can be used
for all kinds of scrap a high recov-