Sustainable Reuse of Waste Tire Textile Fibers (WTTF) as Reinforcements

Abstract

Waste tire textile fibers (WTTF), as a by-product (10–15% by weight of tires) of end-of-life tires (ELT) mechanical recycling (grinding), are classified as hazardous wastes and traditionally burnt (thermal recycling) or buried (landfilling), leading to several environmental and ecological issues. Thus, WTTF still represent an important challenge in today’s material recycling streams. It is vital to provide practical and economical solutions to convert WTTF into a source of inexpensive and valuable raw materials. In recent years, tire textile fibers have attracted significant attention to be used as a promising substitute to the commonly used natural/synthetic reinforcement fibers in geotechnical engineering applications, construction/civil structures, insulation materials, and polymer composites. However, the results available in the literature are limited, and practical aspects such as fiber contamination (~65% rubber particles) remain unsolved, limiting WTTF as an inexpensive reinforcement. This study provides a comprehensive review on WTTF treatments to separate rubber and impurities and discusses potential applications in expansive soils, cement and concrete, asphalt mixtures, rubber aerogels and polymer composites.