HOUSTON—Perhaps no other single ingredient in rubber manufacturing is scrutinized under the sustainability microscope as much as carbon black.
The additive that provides unique strength and protection properties for millions of tire and non-tire rubber and specialty products has recast the vernacular for sustainability and its accompanying iterations, bringing circularity, recyclability, recoverability and renewability into the fold.
For Houston-based Orion S.A., a global supplier of rubber and specialty CBs, sustainability also means ensuring that environmental efforts benefit the regions where its 15 international carbon black production plants exist.
"The ability to adapt and be resilient to climate change will become increasingly important for carbon black producers," Corning Painter, CEO of Orion S.A., told Rubber News from his office in Houston. "Orion serves as a compelling case study."
To wit, the CB manufacturer that traces its roots back 160 years to Germany recently engineered a new water treatment system in Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality in South Africa, rescuing effluent water from a nearby sewage treatment plant, filtering it once more on-site and using the gray water for CB production.
Only two years ago, the South African municipality faced severe drought, pushing the region of 1.3 million people toward "day zero," when the potable freshwater taps could have turned off (but fortunately did not).
The 70-person Orion South Africa—the only CB producer in sub-Saharan Africa (Birla Carbon has a facility in Egypt)—also completed the move of its petroleum feedstock storage tanks from one end of Nelson Mandela Bay to the other, essentially keeping Orion in the region and allowing city planners to redevelop the area Orion vacated.