Current practices and the way forward in waste rubber utilization for infrastructural and geoenvironmental engineering applications
Prithvendra Singh, Venkata Siva Naga Sai Goli, Devendra Narain Singh
Abstract
Rubber manufacturers, and especially the automobile industry, along with urban local bodies, recyclers, and society by large, are facing a major challenge in terms of reuse and/or valorization of the huge quantities of the Waste Rubber, read as WasRub. The WasRub being highly resistant to thermal, biological, chemical, and photochemical degradation, due to its cross-linked (vulcanized) structure, is a major threat to the ecosystem. Thus, the need of the hour is to devise novel strategies and methodologies that would facilitate bulk utilization of the WasRub by fulfilling the requirements associated with the sustainable development goals, SDGs. In this context, efforts made by earlier researchers and technologists to address the efficacy of the schemes by which WasRub can be valorized are worth appreciating. However, being the case- and site- specific, these efforts (i) are limited and hence the findings cannot be generalized, (ii) lack insight into the grain-scale characteristics of WasRub, and (iii) do not present the pros and cons of the pathways adopted for the valorization of WasRub. Keeping this in view, a comprehensive and critical appraisal of the literature dealing with the valorization of WasRub for infrastructural and geoenvironmental applications was conducted, and a synthesis of what the problem is, why it persists, and what is the way forward have been discussed in this paper. Efforts have also been made to highlight the influence of (i) micro-mechanisms and (ii) the parameters, that control utilization of WasRub as a manmade resource for attaining SDGs without any apprehension(s).