Acutely aware of the environmental impact of unrecyclable rubber, UK-based rubber engineers Martin’s Rubber Company were inspired to develop a completely sustainable and unique rubber recycling process. Known as Remould™, this innovative new approach enables them to break down, re-vulcanise and remould nitrile rubber into brand-new moulded products.

Rubber is notoriously difficult to recycle. Unlike plastic, it’s not a simple case of heating and re-using rubber. Thermoplastic materials can be heated, deformed and reprocessed into new or different products. But vulcanisation permanently “sets” the bonds of a rubber and that process is incredibly difficult to reverse.

Rubber is like a sponge cake. Once a cake has been baked, it’s impossible to extract the constituent parts – the eggs, the flour, the milk – to be re-used in another recipe. That, in an eggshell, is the enormity of the challenge that has faced conscientious rubber manufacturers who have previously attempted to recycle vulcanised rubber.

It’s challenging, for sure. But not impossible, as Martin’s Rubber Company has proven.

Remould™ rubber recycling

Alongside their industrial and academic partners, Martin’s Rubber Company has successfully developed a scalable, proprietary rubber recycling solution, known as Remould™. For the first time this innovative process enables them to break down those aforementioned molecular bonds to produce a reusable material.

Remould™ technology creates a closed loop recycling process that allows the Southampton-based rubber engineers to de-vulcanise end-of-life rubber products and re-vulcanise them into fresh ones. They simply combine the de-vulcanised rubber with raw, virgin rubber to form new bonds and a newly moulded product.

Martin’s Rubber Company is re-shaping the rubber recycling process to create sustainable rubber products using their new recycled material, known as Envirolast. All of their products are unfailingly kind to the environment and exhibit reliable, repeatable physical properties, as well as a high-quality finish.

“Over the years, there have been many attempts to find a successful way of reforming rubber that have ultimately ended in failure,” a spokesperson for Martin’s Rubber Company told us. “But we’ve been able to develop a solution that not only reverses the state of rubber compounds but also enables us to recycle rubber and fulfil our commitment to producing eco-friendly rubber products.”

Currently available in nitrile, Martin’s Rubber Company guarantees that as much as 50% of the rubber in every one of its Envirolast moulded products has been recycled using its game-changing Remould™ technology.

For more information, please visit https://www.martins-rubber.co.uk.