What is pyrolysis, and how does it actually convert a tyre into oil, gas, and char?
Short answer: Pyrolysis is a thermal process that heats shredded tyre material in an oxygen-free chamber to a high temperature, which causes the rubber compounds to break down chemically rather than combust, yielding three genuinely distinct outputs — a liquid pyrolysis oil usable as a fuel or chemical feedstock, a combustible gas often used to help power the process itself, and a solid carbon char byproduct — alongside the steel wire, which survives the process largely unchanged and is recovered separately afterward.
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List Free →Why the absence of oxygen is the whole point
Without oxygen present, the tyre material genuinely cannot combust in the normal sense — instead the intense heat breaks the rubber’s chemical bonds apart, which is what produces oil and gas rather than simply burning the material to ash.
Why pyrolysis produces three separate outputs rather than one
Different components of the rubber compound break down into different forms at pyrolysis temperatures, which is genuinely why the process yields distinct liquid, gas, and solid char fractions rather than a single uniform product.
Why the steel survives this process largely intact
Steel wire has a far higher melting point than the temperatures used in pyrolysis, so it genuinely passes through the process largely unaffected and is simply recovered afterward using the same magnetic separation used in mechanical processing.
How ScrapTrade Fits In
The steel wire recovered after pyrolysis is chemically unchanged scrap metal, and is exactly the kind of material sold through ScrapTrade once it has been pulled out of the leftover char.
Tyre recycling recovers far more material than most people realise — rubber, steel, and fabric each follow a distinct path from collection to end product. ScrapTrade connects verified buyers and sellers of the scrap metal recovered along the way, with transparent weighing and escrow-protected payments.
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