Birla Carbon makes carbon black – and tyres – more circular

Why should carbon black be made more sustainable? It’s because of the sheer prevalence of this vital material in our life. Take tyres – over a billion tyres are produced every year and typically every tyre’s composition is around 20-30% carbon black. Making carbon black sustainable has a cascading effect across the tyre, rubber and automotive industries. Birla Carbon, a global leader in this crucial industrial element, is driving this journey in innovative ways.

Sustainable carbonaceous material (SCM) is the term Birla Carbon uses for its innovative recovered carbon black products, branded as Continua. “The use of recovered carbon black from end-of-life tyres such as Birla Carbon’s ContinuaTM 8030 and ContinuaTM 8000 is set to grow and will play a critical role in carbon black applications in the long term,” says Mr. John Loudermilk, CEO, Birla Carbon.

The development of ContinuaTM SCMs – where production can be traced back to post-consumer and post-industrial tyres through the ISCC PLUS certified supply chain – underscores Birla Carbon’s strong commitment to creating sustainable business solutions.

In a recent podcast, where he spoke with Ewan Scott, editor of Tyre & Rubber Recycling, Mr. Loudermilk pointed out that by providing an alternative to traditional carbon black, circular products like the ContinuaTM SCMs are enabling companies to achieve their sustainability goals.

“There’s a recognition now that SCM has to be part of the solution. You’re never going to completely decarbonise production just by using renewable feedstocks. You need a suite of solutions for that: new process technology for making carbon black, new feedstocks, and circular materials from end-of-life tyres. And, while this won't make a material exactly the same as carbon black, it makes a material that has advantages and applications. We have to find those and use it,” he explains. 
 

Answering the need for consistency

Birla Carbon took the lead to develop a circular carbon black product by collaborating with technology partners, and by leveraging its own deep understanding of carbon black and its use in various applications to develop SCMs. “We see the confidence of the customers to accept the quality level and consistency as being the key to scale. And that’s what we're really bringing to the industry, because of our credibility as a carbon black supplier and our understanding of the supply chain, value chain and customer base,” says Mr. Loudermilk.

Although the pyrolysis technology used to recover carbon black from end-of-life tyres has been around for long, providing quality with consistency at scale was the challenge.

Over the last few years, Birla Carbon has demonstrated its ability to provide quality with consistency at scale; first, from a single factory in Netherlands, where it launched Continua TM 8000 largely for customers in Europe, and since October 2024, by establishing a manufacturing joint-venture with Finster Black in India to supply Continua TM 8030, which has been designed to meet the requirements of  customers in Asia. 
 

Overcoming material challenges

The challenge with SCMs is that recovered carbon black from end-of-life tyres does not have the same surface chemistry and surface reactivity as virgin carbon black. That’s because the material from end-of-life tyres includes components like silica, which cannot be separated during the recovery process. Birla Carbon puts recovered carbon black through additional processes, such as making formulation changes in the polymer matrix, to produce its SCM.

As Mr. Loudermilk points out, while some applications can use 100% SCM, the circular material cannot entirely replace carbon black. In tyres, for instance, SCM can be used to make some of its sub-components. Hence, Birla Carbon supplies Continua products both as 100% SCM and in a variety of blends with carbon black.

Another issue is that treatment of recovered carbon black is an energy-intensive process which can potentially impact the sustainability benefits of using a circular product. “Some of the future developments for SCM will have to balance out between the sustainable aspects and carbon footprint versus the performance requirements. But that line will constantly keep moving as regulations, energy costs, and the value of CO2 change, and with advances in technology,” Mr. Loudermilk explains. 
 

Towards a circular future

Backed by state-of-the-art technology, Birla Carbon’s Continua products have already gained considerable traction with the company offering technical support to its customers to help them integrate SCMs in their production lines, thus enabling them to progress on sustainability goals. Birla Carbon targets to repurpose 300,000 tonnes of end-of-life tires through Continua™ SCM per year by 2030, which is a ten-fold increase from its FY25 targets.

Mr. Loudermilk expects several existing carbon black applications, which range from tyres and plastics to inks and coatings, to move to SCM in the long term, both because of the material’s own unique performance characteristics and its potential use as a blend with carbon black. “Over the long term, as you're able to manipulate the material or modify the surface chemistry, this could be even greater,” he says.

The innovation of Continua is one of the testaments to Birla Carbon’s strong commitment to decarbonisation; it was in fact the first company in the industry to make a commitment to Net Zero by 2050.

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