About Us

Black Bear brings the circular economy to tyres. We enable the production of valuable raw materials (Carbon Black) from end-of-life tyres for re-use in tyres, technical rubber products, plastics, paint and ink. We provide technology, product development and marketing and sales expertise of our Carbon Black products. While we are primarily focussed on the production of high quality Carbon Black, the process also yields two  important bi-products – tyre pyrolytic oil (TPO) and tyre pyrolytic gas (TPG). TPO can be used as a fuel, chemical feedstock or as carbon black feedstock oil and provides as such an additional income stream to our business model. The TPG is a high calorific gas which can be converted to heat, electricity or steam and can be used in our own production proces. We partner with tyre collectors and offer our high quality products as raw materials to the Industry.

Carbon Black is a form of elemental carbon that is manufactured by the controlled vapour-phase pyrolysis and partial combustion of hydrocarbons. Occurring as a fine black powder, Carbon Black is used to provide structure and durability in tyres and jet-black coloration in inks, plastics and rubber. Several processes have been used to produce Carbon Black, including the oil-furnace, impingement (channel), lampblack, thermal (decomposition of natural gas) and acetylene (decomposition) processes — in addition to Black Bear’s proven carbonization pyrolysis method. Carbon Blacks are commonly referred to by the process or the source material from which they are made, e.g. furnace black, lamp black, thermal black, acetylene black and channel black. The different grades from the various processes have certain unique characteristics, but it is now possible to produce reasonable approximations of most of these grades using the oil-furnace process, by which more than 95% of the total output of Carbon Black is produced.

The Black Bear process uses end-of-life tyres to produce carbon black. Each year over one and a half billion tyres are removed from vehicles, constituting around 17 million tons of solid waste. As tyres contain around 25% carbon black. This means that this waste-stream contains approximately 4.5 million tons of carbon black. Through the eyes of Black Bear, a mountain of tyres is like a mountain of gold! Therefore we took up the challenge of investigating how to extract the carbon black in a way that is both profitable and friendly to our environment – and perhaps most importantly from a commercial perspective in a way that restores the carbon black to a quality level at least as good as the original product. So Black Bear partners with established tyre collectors who can use the Black Bear technology to turn this vast waste stream into a valuable raw material. Before the tyres enter the Black Bear process, the steel will be removed and recycled, and the rubber will be converted into granulate.

Traditional furnace or ‘virgin’ carbon black is produced from fossil fuels, by partially burning crude oil under controlled conditions. Depending on the grade it takes between 1.8 and 2.5 litres of fossil fuels to produce 1 kg of carbon black. The standard way of producing carbon black is very polluting. Furnace carbon black manufacturers emit around 38 million tons of CO₂ per year. The ±9 million tons of carbon black used by the tyre industry every year creates an additional environmental issue because after use these tyres are in some parts of the world still being burned or landfilled, polluting the environment and wasting the carbon black. In contrast, the Black Bear process uses end-of-life tyres as feedstock to produce consistent, high quality carbon blacks. This circular economy approach not only massively reduces CO₂ emissions but also helps solve an important waste management problem. Interestingly, the Black Bear process produces more energy than it consumes, thereby having a beneficial effect on the environment.

Yes, with Black Bear’s technology it has become possible to recover high quality carbon blacks that are equal (and in some cases better) than virgin carbon blacks in terms of technical performance. Please see our product pages under ‘Carbon Black users’ for more details or contact us directly!

Yes, our process effectively ‘cleans’ furnace carbon blacks to a PAH content of <5ppm. This means our products are extremely clean and very suitable for food- and human contact applications. We are proud to produce the world’s first ‘green and clean’ carbon blacks!

You can contact us directly via sales@blackbearcarbon.com. Our team is happy to assist you further.

Yes, Black Bear’s commercial flagship plan in Chemelot will be producing a stable annual output of 12,000 ton/year rCB, allowing us to continuously serve customers across market segments. Considering over 1.5B tyres come to the end of their life every year, and we will process more than 3M of these with our plant, there is no shortage of supply in the near future! Also, Black Bear is in well progressed conversations with potential partners across the world to add additional production capacity.

Using a more sustainable, ‘greener’ carbon black highly improves the environmental footprint of your products, as well as lowering the PAH content – making it better suitable for food- and human contact applications. Currently, carbon blacks are created by burning oil and/or gas which obviously is a highly polluting process that puts great pressure on the environment and our natural resources. Typically, replacing virgin carbon black with green carbon black from Black Bear saves 5-7 ton CO2 for each ton of substituted material.

Also, with Black Bear’s technology, it has become possible to recover high quality carbon blacks that are equal (and in some cases better) than virgin carbon blacks in terms of technical performance.

Due to its nature rCB’s are no 1:1 on weight replacements for ASTM carbon black.

Up to 10 different grades of carbon black are used in one single tyre therefore rCB’s are a blend and have therefore a wide primary and aggregate size distribution.

Tyres contain other inorganics such as amorphous silica, ZincOxide, Calcium carbonate which are co-extracted with the carbon black and are exposed to high temperatures. Therefore they have high ash and lower surface chemistry and polarity.

Yes, waste tyres and the associated environmental problems are in every country of the world. We are very excited to resolve this problem with our Circular Economy approach. We prefer to work with local partners and governments in order to maximize our positive environmental impact.

Absolutely. We are looking for partners that can provide us with feedstock (end-of-life) tyres, locations, permits and financing. In many cases we also partner with local governments. The best way to get in touch with us is to go to our form and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

On average the construction of a Black Bear plant takes around 18 months assuming timely access to permits and long lead items from vendors. Black Bear and its contracted engineers can arrange all of the required engineering aspects with detailed consideration into all site-specific conditions and requirements. We will work closely with the tire collector/investor(s) and provide all information required to the authorities, for example, for permitting, to expedite the process.