Tire Conversion Technologies of Scotia, N.Y., began in 1998 with the idea that the most valuable raw material in a tire is not the rubber, but the engineered strength. Four patents and four years later, the company is manufacturing a variety of products for niche markets.
Jerry Coffin is Tire Conversion Technologies’ (TCT) president and CEO. His father Joseph invented the process and technologies TCT uses. “Tremendous raw materials are put into manufacturing a tire. The most important raw material that goes into a tire is not the oil or the rubber or the steel or the polyester fiber, it’s the actual labor and engineering that design the tire,” Coffin says.
The process TCT employs results in a DuraBoardÔ, a construction material consisting of the tread belts from two different tires of the same size. The material is suited to a variety of applications from snowplows to wall bumpers.
Coffin says TCT begins by collecting newly removed tires and runs truck routes on a regular basis. TCT receives a set tipping fee for the tires it collects. The tires are then sorted by size, with all processing done indoors.
“From the outside of our factory, there is no visual evidence that we are doing anything with scrap tires, and that makes the neighbors happy,” Coffin says. He adds that TCT’s manufacturing process is emissions free. “It lends itself to decentralization, so we can go where the tires are, because shipping scrap tires is an expensive prospect.”
The sidewalls are removed from the size-sorted tires. A conveyor then carries the tires to a buffing machine, which Coffin says is a modification of machinery that is used in the truck tire re-treading industry, and the worn tread is ground away.
“We are left with a uniform thickness of tread rubber around a steel belt,” Coffin says. TCT then cuts transversely through the steel belt. “Our next process involves heat and pressure to flatten out the tread. Then we laminate that together using special gum rubber with another tread of exactly the same size. We subject that again to heat and pressure.” Coffin explains, “Tires are a polymer and the heat causes the polymer links to loosen up so we’re able to reconfigure the direction of the polymer lengths and, at the same time, introduce virgin rubber that intermixes with the reconfigured polymer lengths.”
The cooled product is a solid rubber plank reinforced with two steel belts, or DuraBoardÔ.
“It’s a solid piece of the toughest rubber made, reinforced every quarter inch with a steel belt. For any impact resistant application, it just cannot be beat,” Coffin says.
“We started off seeing it strictly as a replacement for chemically treated wood in the marine industry, because it’s completely nontoxic,” Coffin says. “We were talking about building factories that would make this stuff at a price competitive with wood. Well, it turned out it just wasn’t a viable strategy. We went into these specialty markets, and the margins are very good for us.”
TCT’s latest products are folding flaps and blades for snowplows. Once Coffin learned that airports are required to use rubber cutting edges on their snowplows to prevent breakage to runway lights, he saw an opportunity to market his product. The standard urethane rubber is expensive and wears quickly, he says. Additionally, the airports must purchase the rubber in large rolls and fabricate it.
“It wasn’t a big enough market to justify the rubber companies making a specialty product, but for us it would be a tremendous market,” Coffin says.
The lack of significant snowfall this winter means that TCT’s snowplow blades have been tested under the worst conditions, which means the blades have been getting a lot of abrasion, Coffin says. What he’s found out is that the DuraBoardÔ blades are easier on lawns and flowerbeds. The DuraBoardÔ blades also are kinder on the plow operator, as they reduce noise and shaking, thereby decreasing operator fatigue, Coffin says.
TCT has expanded into a series of snow-related products aimed at snow grooming machines and the snow mobile industry. Coffin says, “The direction that we are going in is a whole range of specialty products aimed at niche markets. That will build us a strong base on which we can create our true mass markets, which will either be railroads or large industrial marine projects.”