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==Devulcanization==
TheNo rubber industry has been researching the devulcanization of rubber for many years. The main difficulty in recycling rubber has been devulcanizing the rubber without compromising its desirable properties. The process of devulcanization involves treating rubber in granular form with heat and/or softening agents in order to restore its elastic qualities, in order to enable the rubber to be reused. Several experimental processes have achieved varying degrees of success in the laboratory, but have been less successful when scaled up to commercial production levels. Also, different processes result in different levels of devulcanization: for example, the use of a very fine granulate and a process that produces surface devulcanization will yield a product with some of the desired qualities of unrecycled rubber.
The rubber recycling process begins with the collection and shredding of discarded [[tire]]s. This reduces the rubber to a granular material, and all the [[steel]] and reinforcing [[fiber]]s are removed. After a secondary grinding, the resulting rubber powder is ready for product remanufacture. However, the manufacturing applications that can utilize this inert material are restricted to those which do not require its vulcanization.
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