Prof. D. N. Singh

PRITHVENDRA SINGH

Ph. D. Scholar Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, India
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, India prithvendrasingh@gmail.com

VALORIZATION OF END-OF-LIFE TIRES FOR SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE & GEOENVIRONMENTAL APPLICATIONS

Rapid industrialization and urbanization have resulted in the generation of enormous quantities of waste rubber (WasRub) and waste plastics (WasPla), which pose serious environmental and health issues, and are a part of the legacy waste in landfills/dumpsites. Though several techniques have been developed and adopted to overcome this situation, it appears that the best way forward would be to utilize these so-called wastes as the manmade resource, which expands the horizon of the research much beyond the geotechnical applications of the former. With this in view, successful efforts were made to develop polymer composites (pCom) from these wastes by resorting to extrusion and injection molding. Also, to tackle the scarcity of natural aggregates for civil engineering applications, such as drainage layers, leachate collection and removal systems (LCRs), landscaping, etc., pathways to repurpose WasRub and WasPla as rubber aggregates (RAs) and rubber plastic blends (RPBs) were attempted. Extensive investigations on thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical-biological characteristics of these manmade aggregates under extreme geoenvironmental conditions demonstrate the feasibility of this hypothesis. Moreover, based on extensive macro- and micro characteristics, it has been demonstrated that rubberized concrete (RubCrete) presents a viable solution to address the environmental impacts of WasRub. In a nutshell, this study underscores the potential of WasRub and WasPla for sustainable infrastructure and geoenvironmental applications, aligning with the principles of circular economy and sustainable development goals.