PHILADELPHIA—One industry's problem just might be another industry's solution.
And when it comes to rubber, one of those industry solutions is the science behind Arduro, an up-and-coming company focused on bringing greater sustainability with more circular solutions. A kind of familiar yet not so familiar circular solution. Namely: devulcanization.
"It is not pyrolysis," Patrick Kroeger, Arduro's chief technology officer, said of the technology upon which Arduro is built. "Pyrolysis is a high-temperature degradation process where you melt away the polymer. You degrade it, convert it to oil and then evaporate that oil and recover the leftover solids as recovered carbon black. We don't do that.
"We take devulcanization—we basically break apart the rubber matrix and carbon black and polymer from a solutions chemistry."
The science behind Kroeger's devulcanization technology is rooted in a dilemma that plagued wastewater treatment plants in the mid-2000's. That's when the University of Louisville partnered with the American Waterworks Association to help pinpoint why elastomeric parts at the treatment facilities were degrading so quickly.