CLERMONT-FERRAND, France—Michelin has agreed to coordinate BlackCycle, the recently launched public-private European consortium tasked with developing processes to recycle end-of-life tires into materials for new tires.
BlackCycle, which in May received three years of funding from the European Union, has a goal to develop and optimize a "value-chain form ELT feedstock" to secondary raw materials with no waste of resources and specific attention to the environmental impact.
These SRMs will be used to develop new ranges of passenger car and truck tires, which will be sold commercially in European and global markets, Michelin said.
According to Michelin, BlackCycle involves 13 organizations, including seven industrial partners, five research and technological organizations and an innovation cluster from five countries—France, Germany, Greece, Spain and Switzerland.
With an overall budget of $17.8 million, the "unique" public-private partnership will examine the technical, environmental and economic viability of circular processes for the production of sustainable secondary raw materials for new tires.
The EU is contributing 76.5 percent of the budget for BlackCycle, with the rest coming from the participating entities.