Activated Carbon

High Porosity of Carbon

Tire carbon has a high carbon content and is therefore highly porous. As a result, it can be used in many filtering/purification applications such as water purification, air filtration etc.

Natural Impregnation

As importantly as the porosity of tire carbon is its sulfur content. This sulfur content is the result of the sulfur added to vulcanize the tire rubber. It has been shown that activated carbon can be impregnated to improve on the performance of its massive surface area when used for adsorption. For example, silver is added to activated carbon for water purification applications. In the case of tire carbon, sulfur is a natural additive for mercury capture. Mercury, in its gaseous form, combines with sulfur to make mercuric sulfide which bonds to the carbon pores. As a result, tire carbon with its native high content sulfur is a high-quality mercury sorbent with overall performance comparable to the halogen impregnated activated carbon currently available in the air emission applications market. The tire carbon performance can be explained by the fact that it captures mercury not only by physisorption but also by chemisorption, through the creation of mercury sulfide as the mercury bonds with the sulfur. Unlike many impregnated mercury sorbents, ECI's sorbent is naturally impregnated as the sulfur is uniformly distributed throughout the carbon during the vulcanization and thereafter during the pyrolysis and activation process. ECI's impregnation is not a post activation enhancement and does not require additional processing of the activated carbon.

Patented

ECI has acquired exclusive rights to patents that were obtained as a result of work done in the early days of testing the use of activated carbon injection as a solution for removing mercury from coal-fired flue gas, including the use of activated tire carbon. The preliminary work was funded by the Department of Energy and its efficacy proven in those early field studies.

EcoCarbon's Eco-PAC-S^®

EcoPAC-S^®, the first high value scrap tire product is at the confluence of these two patented technologies: continuous flow pyrolysis for low cost high value pre-impregnated feedstock; and activation for use as a mercury sorbent. For specific details about this product see the Eco-PAC-S^® page.