Waste Tire Rubber-based Refrigerants for Solid-state Cooling Devices

Management of discarded tires is a compelling environmental issue worldwide.Although there are several approaches developed to recycle waste tire rubbers,their application in solid-state cooling is still unexplored.Considering the high barocaloric potential verified for elastomers,the use of waste tire rubber(WTR)as a refrigerant in solid-state cooling devices is very promising.Herein,we investigated the barocaloric effects in WTR and polymer blends made of vulcanized natural rubber(VNR)and WTR,to evaluate its feasibility for solid-state cooling technologies.The adiabatic temperature changes and the isothermal entropy changes reach giant values,as well as the performance parameters,being comparable or even better than most barocaloric materials in literature.Moreover,pure WTR and WTR-based samples also present a faster thermal exchange than VNR,consisting of an additional advantage of using these discarded materials.Thus,the present findings evidence the encouraging perspectives of employing waste rubbers in solid-state cooling based on barocaloric effects,contributing to both the recycling of polymers and the sustainable energy technology field.

Tire-derived carbon for catalytic preparation of biofuels from feedstocks containing free fatty acids

The utilization of waste feedstocks rich in free fatty acids(FFAs)improves biofuel production on the basis of economics and sustainability.However,converting these feedstocks to usable biofuel poses inherent problems in terms of the FFA to biofuel conversion yield and the catalyst lifetime.Here,we report novel ferric sulfate impregnated carbon derived from waste tires as highly active catalysts for FFA to biofuel conversion.Our approach takes advantage of facile synthesis methods involving sonication and dehydration processes to create materials that are useful for the efficient catalytic conversion of FFAs to advanced biofuels.Esterification of FFAs to fatty acid methyl esters was achieved at 65
C and atmospheric pressure with>98%yield even in the presence of triglycerides.These catalysts maintained similar activity after four successive uses,which indicates that the active catalytic sites are effectively supported by the three-dimensional meso/microporous architecture of the tire-derived carbon.

Dynamical mechanical behaviors of rubber-filled wood fiber composites with urea formaldehyde resin

Wood composites glued with thermosetting synthetic resins tend to show inadequate damping performance caused by the cured resinous matrix.Waste rubber maintains prominent elasticity and is feasible to be an optional modifier.To that end,composite panels of granulated tire rub-ber(GTR)powders and thermal-mechanically pulped wood fibers were fabricated in this study.Urea formaldehyde(UF)resin was applied as the bonding agent(10%based on wood/rubber total weight).Dynamical mechanical analysis(DMA)was conducted to disclose the thermo-mechanical behaviors of the rubber-filled wood fiber composites.Influence of two technical pa-rameters,i.e.,GTR powder size(0.55-1.09 mm)and addition content(10%,20%and 30%based on wood/rubber total weight),was specifically discussed.The results showed that storage modu-lus(E’)of the rubber-filled composite decreased while loss factor(tan𝛿)increased monotonously along with elevated temperature.A steady“plateau”region among 110-170°C was found where both E’and tan𝛿keep constant.Accordingly,tan𝛿showed two peak values at 103-108 and 231-233°C due to glass transition of lignin and thermal degradation of hemicellulose,respectively.Addition of rubber fillers resulted in lower bending and internal bonding strengths as well as stor-age modulus values.When the temperature was above 183°C,all the rubber-filled composites showed higher tan𝛿values than the control.The findings above fully demonstrate the improved damping performance of the UF-bonded wood fiber composites on account of rubber component.Further work is still needed to optimize the rubber/fiber interfacial bonding strength.

Strength reduction factors for structural rubbercrete

Many researches have been carried out to study the fresh and hardened properties of concrete containing crumb rubber as replacement to fine aggregate by volume, yet there is no specific guideline has been developed on the mix design of the rubbercrete. The experimental program, which has been developed and reported in this paper, is designed and executed to provide such mix design guidelines. A total of 45 concrete mixes with three different water to cement ratio （0.41, 0.57 and 0.68） were cast and tested for fresh and mechanical properties of rubbercrete such as slump, air content, unit weight, compressive strength, flexural strength, splitting tensile strength and modulus of elasticity. Influence of mix design parameters such as percentage of crumb rubber replacement, cement content, water content, fine aggregate content, and coarse aggregate content were investigated. Three levels of slump value （for conventional concrete mixes） has been selected; low, medium and high slump. In each slump level, water content was kept constant. Equations for the reduction factors （RFs） for compressive strength, flexural strength, splitting tensile strength and modulus of elasticity have been developed. These RFs can be used to design rubbercrete mixes based on the conventional mix （0% crumb rubber content）