Friedrichshafen (Germany), March 1, 2023 Giving scrap tires a new life, saving CO2 emissions and contributing sustainably to the circular economy. These are precisely the goals pursued by Friedrichshafen-based system manufacturer Zeppelin Systems, which has been active in the market as an integrated solution provider for the tire industry when it comes to manufacturing new tires for more than 40 years. In cooperation with international partners and innovative technologies, Zeppelin Systems is revolutionizing industrial recycling solutions for scrap tires. The French company Regom, which specializes in sorting scrap tires using artificial intelligence (AI), came on board on February 10, 2023.
Every three seconds, a fully automatic tire sorting machine determines the future of a used car tire; therefore, the French company Regom's technology manages around 800 tires per hour. This is made possible with the help of AI, which evaluates tire sidewall images at lightning speed after measurement and determines exact features and further use of scrap tires. The results are a high-accuracy detection rate of the tire’s brand, model, profile, size and wear. "This process step is very important for the further processing and high-quality recycling of scrap tires. At the same time, the workload in tire sorting is greatly reduced because tires no longer need to be sorted and evaluated manually," says Guido Veit, Vice President Sales for Polyolefins, Rubber and Silos at Zeppelin Systems GmbH. There is another advantage for the second-hand tire market. “The exact measurement and evaluation automatically increases the proportion of recyclable tires,” adds Veit.
Tires that have not made it back to the shops are mechanically separated and shredded as the next step. Due to the high degree of precision in the sorting process, the quality of the resulting recyclates increases in terms of their grade purity. This creates a perfect starting point for manufacturing new tires with recyclates from used tires, while also supporting the circular economy. In addition, AI-based scrap tire sorting is easy to integrate into existing recycling systems – a perfect addition to Zeppelin Systems’ wide range of services in tire recycling. "We are proud of our large partner network in the tire recycling industry and create innovative solutions for our customers' challenges with each additional partner," says Dr. Markus Vöge, CEO of Zeppelin Systems GmbH. “At the same time, we are contributing to the sustainability of the circular economy and thus fulfilling our commitment as a foundation-owned company,” adds Vöge proudly. We Create Solutions!
