This project revolves around the simulation of a plant that takes in waste tires and thermally degrades them into gas and other byproducts. The gas is then transformed into ammonia, a starting material for many applications such as fertilizers, purification of water supplies and manufacture of plastics and dyes. 

At a preliminary stage, the project was approached by a market demand analysis of tires and ammonia. Team members were in the lookout for many different processes to make use of scrap tires. Gasification, a thermal degradation technology, proved to be most efficient in degrading tires into intermediate products.

The simulation was carried out on market-leading process modeling tools, Aspen Plus and Aspen HYSIS. Optimization was then established to minimize cost all while maximizing efficiency.

One of the challenges they faced was the lack of access to experimentation. The Lebanese revolution and the rise of the Covid-19 global pandemic over the course of both fall and spring semesters have prevented them from fully concretizing the research and designs sought out.

Overall, recycling car tires to produce widely used ammonia proves to be a promising project to solve the current waste problem in Lebanon. The design includes technical details on how to control, startup and shutdown the plant. While the theoretical part shows to be impeccable, the practical part is essential and needs to take place when things go back to normal. The study of the feasibility of implementation is also required: analysis of the location logistics and other environmental impacts need to be done to ensure that optimum ecological efficiency is obtained and can be maintained in the long run.