BOULDER, Colorado—U.S. tire recycling business Bolder Industries and carbon black manufacturer Continental Carbon Co. will produce sustainable carbon black products for the rubber and plastics industry.
The companies will launch a sustainable blend of CCC's carbon black grades incorporating Bolder's recovered carbon black materials, BolderBlack, Bolder said in a Nov. 17 statement.
The collaboration will use Bolder's carbon black alternatives in CCC's virgin grades N550, N650, N660, N762 and N774 and will provide customers pre-blended fillers customized at various ratios.
The blends will offer customers with measurable environmental sustainability benefits.
Based in Boulder, Bolder operates a tire shredding and pyrolysis facility in Maryville, Mo., and is expanding the cite to increase processing capacity.
The company said in late October it was merging with publicly traded company GigCapital2 and will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The merger, according to Founder and CEO Tony Wibbeler, will provide the capital required to meet the demand created by the CCC partnership.
"We have always believed in partnering with the traditional carbon black manufacturers to support the end customer," Wibbeler said.
Through the partnership, Bolder can provide "a unique solution" to tire companies and industrial rubber goods manufacturers at a large scale, he said.
CCC President Dennis Hetu said the move was "an important step toward a more profitable and sustainable future for the rubber and plastics industry."
The collaboration allows CCC to offer soft-grade blends into "a marketplace that desperately needs to provide a closed-loop solution," he said.
Citing its own studies, Bolder claims that the incorporation of its BolderBlack in a blend of N762 at 20 percent does not have any physical properties variation beyond the accepted measurement tolerance.
A 3 percent blend of the material can potentially result in a reduction of 3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, saving 9 billion gallons of water as well as a 1 billion kilowatt hour reduction in electricity consumption, Bolder said.