Life Cycle Assessment of Waste Tire Pyrolysis

Abstract

In this study, in order to provide the input for decision-makers in Turkey, the environmental impact of a waste tire pyrolysis plant was researched using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. The functional unit is defined as it of waste tires entering the pyrolysis process. The system boundary, including feedstock pretreatment and pyrolysis, was illustrated and material/energy flows, including raw material, pyrolysis products were determined according to a pilot pyrolysis plant and literature data. The LCA calculations were carried out using licensed SimaPro 8 software. At the impact assessment step, the CML-IA baseline (V3.00) method was applied for selected impact categories (abiotic depletion, global warming, human toxicity, marine aquatic toxicity, acidification and eutrophication). The characterization results show that all the impact categories have negative values, except for acidification. Negative values resulting from avoided products were due to the valuable products of pyrolysis. The acidification impact resulted mainly from SO2 emissions in combustion flue gases. As a summary, the results show that utilization of pyrolysis products in sufficient quantities and the application of flue gas treatment systems play an important role in presenting pyrolysis as an environmentally effective solution for waste tires.