Rudimentary Assessment of Waste-to-Wealth of Used Tires Crumbs in Thermal Energy Storage

Abstract

Disposing of waste tires is a major environmental and economic issue. Different recycling methods have been studied to account for its re-usage. This project aims to evaluate the possible usage of shredded waste tires in thermal energy storage (TES) applications, whether they are sensible or latent materials. An experimental setup has been developed with seven compartments. Each compartment contains different TES materials, including tire crumbs, paraffin wax, paraffin wax with shredded tires, pebbles, pebbles with shredded tires, concrete, and concrete with shredded tires. In all cases of the mixture, the base materials are 60%vol, and the tire crumbs are 40%vol. The experimental included three locations for temperature measurements in each compartment, solar irradiation, and ambient temperature. The tests were carried out from 9:00 a.m. till 7:00 p.m. and repeated for five days to account for the weather’s daily change. Results revealed that mixed 60%vol pebbles and 40%vol shredded tires have the highest recorded temperature, at 112.5 °C, with a 39.5% increment compared to pure pebbles. The interesting finding is that the added tire crumbs reduced the storage capacity of the paraffin wax, which is latent TES material. At the same time, it increased the storage capacity of the concrete and pebbles, which are sensible TES materials. Adding 40%vol of tire crumbs to the paraffin wax has a negative effect, where the thermal storage capacity is reduced by 43%, and the discharge capacity is reduced by 57%. In contrast, the concrete and the pebbles show enhanced storage capacity. Adding 40%vol of crumbs to the concrete increased the charging capacity by 54% and discharging capacity by 33.7%. The 40%vol added tire crumbs to the pebbles increased its charging capacity by 25% and the discharging capacity by 33%. The rudimentary assessment encourages further investigations on using the wasted tires crumbs for TES. The results reveal the probability of a circular economy using wasted tires with sensible TES for solar-to-thermal energy conversion.