Innovative Energy Recovery from End-of-Life Tires in Romania: Logistics-Driven Automation for Gripping and Continuous Feeding in Pyrolysis, Combustion and Gasification

The continuous growth of end-of-life tires (ELT) represents a significant environmental and logis tical challenge worldwide. Due to their non-biodegradable nature, large volume, and resistance to natural degradation, waste tires create long-term storage, safety, and pollution problems when landfilled or stockpiled. At the same time, tires contain a high amount of recoverable energy, which makes them a valuable resource rather than merely a waste stream. As conventional disposal routes become increasingly restricted, waste-to-energy solutions have gained attention as a sustainable alternative. Among the available waste-to-energy technologies, pyrolysis and gasification are considered particularly promising because they allow controlled energy recovery while also producing reusable material outputs. However, existing studies show that the technical performance of these processes is strongly influenced by non-chemical factors such as feedstock preparation, feeding stability, stor age conditions, and operational continuity. Experimental investigations demonstrate that high proportions of waste tires can lead to practical difficulties, including unstable feeding, material blockages, ash agglomeration, and interruptions in continuous operation. In addition, the reviewed evidence indicates that feasibility is shaped by system-level constraints beyond the reactor, includ ing the capacity of gas cleaning and residue handling systems to meet compliance requirements under throughput variability. Downstream planning is also critical: pyrolysis yields multiple out put streams (oil, gas, char, and recovered steel) that require safe storage and reliable routing, and tire-derived products may require conditioning or upgrading to satisfy offtake specifications. These challenges indicate that technological success depends not only on the conversion process itself, but also on the logistical system that supports it. This thesis focuses on the logistics-oriented evaluation of waste tire-to-energy systems, with particular attention to Pyrolysis, Gasification and Combustion pathways. The analysis empha sizes collection networks, transportation flows, storage safety, pre-treatment requirements, and the operational constraints that arise when handling large quantities of tire waste. Rather than exam ining chemical reactions or material compositions, the study adopts an industrial automation and logistics perspective, in line with the Master’s programme in Industrial Automation Engineering at the University of Pavia. From an automation viewpoint, the thesis also highlights monitoring and control challenges typical of industrial thermal systems: because internal conditions are not always directly measurable, practical operation may rely on external measurements combined with known wall/lining characteristics and redundancy in sensing to estimate internal states and verify stability. Sustainability evidence discussed in the thesis further shows that environmental perfor mance depends strongly on how conversion plants are integrated, especially when internal energy integration is achieved (e.g., using non-condensable gases for on-site heat demand) and transport distances and handling burdens are minimised.