Every year, approximately 14 million tons of carbon black is produced worldwide, most of it through incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, causing emissions of 35-40 million tons of CO2. Up to 90% of carbon black is used as a reinforcing agent in products such as tires and rubber; the remainder is used as a pigment in plastics, inks, coatings and other applications.1 Globally about 1-1.5 billion tires come to the end of their life – most of which are dumped, landfilled or burned, often in parts of the world where environmental controls are poor or non-existent.2 This provides major environmental challenges, ranging from CO₂ emissions and pollution from burning these tires to providing great breeding grounds for malaria mosquitos that reside in still-standing water remaining in these tires. Additionally, around 4.5 million tons of carbon black captured in these end-of-life tires goes to waste. Black Bear has developed breakthrough technology to ‘upcycle’ carbon black pigments, oil and gas from waste tires at consistent, high quality; producing net positive energy in the process. This NEPtune (Net Energy Positive) range is an eco-friendly replacement carbon black pigment for a wide range of tinting and full-tone applications.
Traditional furnace or ‘virgin’ carbon black is produced from fossil fuels, by partially burning crude oil, under controlled conditions. This conventional way of producing carbon black is very polluting. A new solution to this issue creates a different production process for carbon black using end-of-life tires as feedstock to produce consistent, high-quality carbon blacks. This circular economy approach has an enormous positive environmental impact on the CO2 footprint of black pigments and contributes to sustainable coatings manufacturing.