Biofuel discovery: start-up company breathes new life into old tyres

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The idea that old tyres could be successfully recycled and used as a fuel was discussion in Shepparton in 2013 by Professor Veena Sahajwalla.

The University of New South Wales (UNSW) professor was one of three speakers at the first of a series of forums staged by the Shepparton-based group, Slap Tomorrow.

More than 600 people were at the city’s Eastbank auditorium to hear the Director of Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology  at the university (SMaRT@UNSW) talk about her research on Sustainable Materials Processing, which involved old tyres.

Professor Sahajwalla has received many international and Australian awards with the most recent being the 2008 New South Wales Scientist of the Year Award in the category of Engineering Sciences for her research on recycling waste plastics in steelmaking, a process which she invented.

And now a green start-up technology company has surprised scientists by producing a biofuel from old rubber tyres that can run turbo-charged diesel engines while reducing emissions by 30 per cent.

Green Distillation Technologies (GDT) can produce 3,000 litres of bio-oil from one giant seven-tonne mining truck tyre.

Read the ABC story - "Biofuel discovery: start-up company breathes new life into old tyres.”