Rubber Recycling: Challenges And Developments

Rubber is used in a vast number of products, from tyres on vehicles to disposable surgical gloves. Increasingly both manufacturers and legislators are realising that recycling is essential for environmental sustainability and can improve the cost of manufacture. The volume of rubber waste produced globally makes it difficult to manage as accumulated waste rubber, especially in the form of tyres, can pose a significant fire risk. Recycling rubber not only prevents this problem but can produce new materials with desirable properties that virgin rubbers lack.

This book presents an up-to-date overview of the fundamental and applied aspects of renewability and recyclability of rubber materials, emphasising existing recycling technologies with significant potential for future applications along with a detailed outline of new technology based processing of rubber to reuse and recycle. This book will be of interest to researchers in both academia and industry as well as postgraduate students working in polymer chemistry, materials processing, materials science and engineering.

Sabu Thomas is professor at the School of Chemical Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, India. He received Ph.D from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and a B.Tech in Polymer Science and Technology from Cochin University. Prof. Thomas has gained additional experience as a visiting professor at a number of universities around the world. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a member of the American Chemical Society, his research has led to the publication of some 360 articles in international peer-reviewed journals, several book chapters and patents. The co-editor of four books, he has been a visiting professor and lecturer at some of the world's leading polymer research laboratories.