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Grubbs-family catalysts are being studied as tools for breaking down unsaturated rubber—not as a proven, widely deployed tyre-recycling technology. Recent laboratory work describes two different routes: one converts tire-like rubber into an intermediate that is pyrolysed to make isoprene; another produces small cyclic hydrocarbons directly through a tandem catalytic sequence.
How can Grubbs’ catalyst act on tyre rubber?
Many tyre rubbers contain carbon–carbon double bonds. Olefin metathesis uses a catalyst to rearrange those bonds, and researchers have used the reaction to break rubber networks into soluble intermediates or smaller cyclic molecules. The details matter: feedstock, catalyst generation, reaction sequence and downstream processing determine what a particular experiment produces.
“Recycling” is therefore a broad description here, not the name of one standardized operation. The studies below report distinct chemical routes; they should not be treated as interchangeable examples of devulcanization, depolymerization or a single commercial process.
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Two reported routes, with different products
| Route | Feedstock and sequence | Reported product |
|---|---|---|
| Isoprene route | Putro and colleagues studied tire-like isoprene rubber containing sulfur cross-links and carbon black. Successive ring-closing metathesis solubilized the organic components without heating, allowing separation from carbon black; pyrolysis followed. | The metathesis step produced an organic fraction with a reported number-average molecular weight (Mn) of 1,000 Da, whose main cyclodepolymerization product was an isoprene cyclic tetramer. Pyrolysis of that intermediate then yielded isoprene as the main monomer product, alongside benzene, toluene and xylene products. ACS Catalysis paper |
| Tandem cycloalkene route | Park and colleagues reported tandem isomerization and ring-closing metathesis for synthetic rubber, including post-consumer vulcanized rubber such as tyres. Their catalyst discussion identifies second-generation Hoveyda–Grubbs catalyst (HG2). | The paper reports C5–C7 cycloalkenes. This is a separate product slate and reaction design from the isoprene route. Chem article |
The first route requires a downstream pyrolysis step to obtain isoprene; the second is described as a tandem catalytic route to cycloalkenes. The reported results do not establish that either route is commercially operating.
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What the wider rubber research does—and does not—show
Related studies extend the research context beyond tyre-like isoprene rubber. A 2016 Green Chemistry paper reported that first- and second-generation Grubbs catalysts could break down polybutadiene networks through cross-metathesis. The authors also tested a styrene-butadiene rubber sheet using G2 with a diester accelerator. A 2026 study reports G2-mediated deconstruction and upcycling of chloroprene rubber. 2016 Green Chemistry paper 2026 chloroprene-rubber study
These results do not prove that the same recipe works on every tyre formulation. Tyres contain complex materials, and performance observed for one rubber type or laboratory feedstock cannot automatically be generalized to all post-consumer tyres.
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Why catalyst choice and reaction design matter
Metathesis does not proceed in isolation from competing chemistry. A separate study involving Grubbs’ second-generation catalyst reports that isomerization side reactions and catalyst decomposition can affect ring-closing metathesis outcomes. Those factors help explain why catalyst generation and process design are central to comparing experiments; they are not evidence that every reported route faces an identical problem. Study of competing reactions in ring-closing metathesis
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The cited papers are research demonstrations. They do not establish commercial-scale deployment, cost competitiveness or lifecycle advantages for these methods. A figure of 1.5 billion discarded tyres per year appears in the 2025 Chem article’s broader context; it should be understood as that article’s reported figure, not as an independently verified current global inventory. Chem article
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The authors of the ACS Catalysis paper describe their method as “a promising approach for repurposing waste tires as a renewable feedstock.” That is the authors’ characterization of experimental work, not proof of industrial readiness. ACS Catalysis paper
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