Former firefighter finds secret of turning old tyres into black gold

UTD Research: a CIPA case study

Ex-firefighter Paul Archer’s initial aim was to find a way of recycling the tens of millions of old tyres that are thrown away each year.  That idea proved to be unworkable.  Instead of producing recycled tyres, the ‘magic machine’ he has applied to patent takes shredded old tyres in at one end and pushes out valuable oil, steel and carbon black at the other.

From the germ of an idea in the early 1990s, four enterprising businessmen from very different backgrounds have got together, formed a company, built a working prototype, applied for an international patent, raised development finance and are now geared up to process up to two million old tyres a year from their plant near Wrexham, North Wales.

UTD Research has developed a process called Continuous Reductive Distillation.  It involves breaking up old tyres into fist-sized chunks and loading them into a machine that looks like an industrial-scale tumble-drier.   There, they are heated in a sealed, oxygen-deprived atmosphere until the volatile constituents separate from the carbon and steel solids. Some of the gases given off are recycled to power the heating process, but most are condensed into oil. 

The solids – steel, carbon black and oil – are all valuable commodities that can be sold.  “The beauty of the business model is that we get paid at both ends,” explains Paul Archer.  “The companies that take away old tyres are no longer allowed to dump them, so they pay us to take them off their hands.  Then, when we’ve done the processing, we can sell the steel, carbon black and oil that come out the other end.”

UTD’s process also means that the environment can be spared the harmful effects of millions of tons of old tyres being tipped into landfill sites, and increasingly scarce fossil fuels can be eked out with the oil recovered from used tyres.  In a recent televised test, reclaimed oil from UTD’s process was mixed with normal diesel to power a standard family saloon car.  With no modifications at all, and a fuel blend of one part of UTD oil to three parts of diesel, the car performed exactly as it would have using 100 per cent diesel.

Dumping: wasteful and harmful

Paul Archer, who had taken early retirement from the fire service to study law and business, carried out some research into the problem of disposing of old tyres.  He found out that it takes more than 12 gallons of crude oil to produce a single car tyre, and that a large part of the hydrocarbon remaining in the tyre was usually just dumped when the tyre wore out.  He also discovered that the EU was planning to introduce a directive banning the dumping of old tyres in landfill sites.

The time was right for someone to find a way of disposing of old tyres and at the same time recover the useful materials they contained.  He researched published sources, including patent databases, to find out whether anybody had already invented a process for recycling old tyres and identified a few inventions that had been tried without much success, including a process that used old coking ovens and another involving microwaves.  Using bits and pieces of household machinery, Paul and his associates managed within a few months to come up with a device that successfully separated oil and carbon black from old car tyres.

They knew enough about intellectual property rights to understand that a patent would be the best way of protecting the invention.  However, as the idea was not yet sufficiently advanced for them to file a patent application, thye relied on keeping the details secret, telling nobody how it worked.

By this time, Paul had finished his MBA at Durham University and was working for the Energy Saving Trust in Peterborough.  With encouragement and support from his colleagues, he left the EST and became the first full-time employee of the company that was registered in 2003 as Used Tyre Distillation Research Limited. 

“I had initially been quite sceptical about the viability of the business,” he says.  “At the time we first researched the market, there was no ban on dumping old tyres and it was cheaper to tip them into landfill sites than to process them.  Since then, the landfill ban has been introduced and the price of crude oil has more than tripled – so it’s now economically sensible to extract oil from old tyres.”

Grants paid for patent searches

Paul’s most urgent task was to secure funding to build a working prototype. 
He approached NESTA – the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts – who offered a convertible loan of £70,000.  “NESTA was our business saviour,” says Paul.  “Their early support meant we could afford to invest in the demonstration unit we now have.  Being able to show that the process worked was essential in getting other funding, such as a Welsh Development Agency Environmental Goods and Services grant.  It also meant that we could pay to carry out patent searches and, eventually, to file our own patent application.”

UTD Research appointed London-based patent attorneys Mathys & Squire to file their international patent application.  According to patent attorney Ilya Kazi, UTD’s businesslike approach to protecting their invention has helped attract the interest of potential financiers.  “I support UTD at meetings with potential investors,” says Ilya. “They invariably have questions about competing technologies and want to know what steps UTD have taken to stop competitors from just copying the process.  The international patent system is invaluable as it not only protects UTD’s invention but, by trawling through the patent databases, we can also show what competing technologies exist.”

Potential solution to a growing problem

According to Wastebook, the government’s guide to recycling and sustainable waste management, the problem of disposing of old tyres is huge and growing.  Every day in Britain over 100,000 worn tyres are taken off cars, vans and trucks, the guide says.  This totals about 40 million tyres (440,000 tonnes) per year - one third of the 121 million (and increasing) in current use.  About 70% of these tyres are diverted from landfill.  About 26% are reused as retreads.  46% are reclaimed for other forms of reuse or recycling; or are incinerated for 'energy recovery', which is a low-grade, undesirable option that cannot be achieved without pollution and contribution to climate change.  The rest (28%) are landfilled or stockpiled, and represent a major waste problem. 

Written by Peter Prowse for the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys
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For further information, contact:

Peter Prowse, CIPA  Tel: 01372 271234, or

Paul Archer, UTD Research Tel: 07765 638 426, info@utdresearch.com, or

Ilya Kazi, Mathys & Squire  Tel: 020 7830 0000, ikazi@mathys-squire.com