Recovered Carbon Black Europe Conference is returning in 2026, with over 350 rCB representatives expected to join us in November. As Europe's leading rCB industry event, the conference provides a unique opportunity for delegates to get the latest industry information and network face-to-face with global experts.
2025 highlights included:
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Laia Perez Simbor holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. She worked for more than 16 years in Brussels as an expert in chemical regulation, supporting various industrial sectors, including metals, mining, and pneumatics. Laia later joined the European Commission’s DG GROW as a Policy Officer, where she addresses the socio-economic aspects of regulation and initiatives related to chemicals legislation.
Jorge Almeida is heading the sustainability department at Continental Tires . In this role, he is responsible for the strategic direction and global management of all sustainability and ESSH (Environmental, Safety, Security and Health) activities of the premium tire manufacturer. Almeida has been with Continental for more than 30 years in various functions and regions. He has extensive experience in Finance, Human Relations, and Purchasing. Most recently, the 56-year-old led the business activities of the Tires business in the Andina region (covering Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela). Prior to that, he served as Head of Purchasing and Strategic Sourcing for rubber as well as indirect materials.
Educated at Oxford and The Royal Military Academy, Robert Harper has been an industrial technology entrepreneur in the circular chemicals and renewable energy sectors for 14 years. This has involved innovating and scaling several plant technologies from lab concept through to scaled production and the production of novel sustainable fuels and circular chemicals under long-term contracts with several major multinationals. He is the Co-founder and Deputy CEO of Circtec, in which role he is currently focussed on deploying a new flagship plant scale-up in the Netherlands. He pioneered the first ever REACh registration for tyre pyrolysis products in 2015 and the first ever ISCC registration for tyre pyrolysis products in 2017. In 2021 Circtec and Birla Carbon announced a long-term supply agreement and partnership for sustainability. Circtec has 2 operational plants and a third under construction, and holds full permits for 250,000 tonnes per year of end-of-life tyre processing capacity in Europe.
Franz holds a PhD in aerosol particle science from ETH Zurich. Before co-founding femtoG with his colleague and climbing partner, he spent years measuring airborne particles in the lab. Over the years, he developed a personal grudge against the improper use of particle-size measurements, whether it is assuming that every particle is a sphere or looking for single nanoparticles in every powder. He channels that grudge into building better particle analyzers and educating people on how heavy a single particle is.
Biography:
2010 PhD in Physical Chemistry, University of Mainz
2010 -2014 PostDocs at MPI-DS, University of Goettingen, and UC San Diego
2015-2023 Group leader at MPI-DS
2022-to date Material Developer at Material Technology Solutions/Material Development & Industrialisation, Continental Reifen Deutschland GmbH
With over 20 years of international experience in the industrial gases industry across Europe and Southeast Asia, Iván Pérez is a Chemical Engineer specialized in the development and implementation of industrial gas technologies. Throughout his career at Messer, he has helped customers optimize processes, improve product quality, increase energy efficiency, and achieve sustainability objectives. Combining technical expertise with commercial and business development experience, he has successfully supported projects across a wide range of industrial sectors including tire pyrolysis recycling.
Anil Nandakumar is the Marketing Head - Asia at Birla Carbon with over 22 years of experience in Marketing, Customer experience and new product introduction through the globe.
Holds a background in chemical engineering with experience in process design, automation, and technology development. Krzysztof joined Contec in 2016, became CEO at 26, and has since driven the company’s technological growth and client relations. Previously, he worked in R&D Team at Warsaw University of Technology and Grupa Azoty, and as an entrepreneur.
After achieving a summa cum laude M.Sc Degree in Chemical Engineering in Rome in 1994 on organic Materials, Mr Cialone devoted himself to the tire industry from 1995 until today. Over the last 29 years, Massimo has worked for international global companies in different roles in R&D, where he was able to gain expertise in both raw materials to compounding as well as processing. He joined Hankook - European Technical Center in 2015, where he serves a Material and Compounding Chief Specialist. Since 2019 his major focus is the development of innovative materials in the field of sustainability as well as coordinating research project in the EU area.
Alex finished his PhD at Imperial College London last year, where he published six papers related to tyre recycling, recovered carbon materials, and waste treatment in internationally recognised journals. Alex undertook numerous consultancy projects alongside his PhD and was awarded the departmental prize for the best thesis submitted in 2023. Alex now works as a Process Engineer at Orion Engineered Carbons, a major manufacturer of carbon black, where he contributes to a range of Innovation projects.
Martin von Wolfersdorff, trading as "Wolfersdorff Consulting Berlin”, is an expert advisor and business partner of Smithers specialising in sustainable carbon blacks. Martin works with Smithers on carbon black consulting projects, writes Smithers reports and is the founder and business partner of the recovered Carbon Black Conference. Martin's corporate assignments were in carbon black, plastic packaging, plastic masterbatch and titanium dioxide. Martin has a Dipl. Ing. (Univ.) degree in chemical engineering from the FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany.
Raffaele di Ronza is the senior application and technical solutions manager for the
Reinforcement Materials business segment at Cabot Corporation. He currently leads the EMEA technical team, which is focused on reinforcing carbons and elastomer composite solutions for tire and industrial rubber applications. With over 20 years of experience in the chemical industry, specifically in rubber value chains, he has also held various roles in R&D, particularly in tires. Raffaele earned an Executive Master of Business Administration from Politecnico di Milano and a master's degree in Industrial Chemistry from the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico.
