Martin von Wolfersdorff is a consultant specialising in alternative rubber fillers and tire pyrolysis. He is in contact with over 320 tire pyrolysis companies globally and advises tyre manufacturing associations, tire manufacturers, tire collectors, refineries, pyrolysis technology providers & operators on the global tire pyrolysis industry and the marketing of recovered carbon black. Previously, Martin worked in the carbon black industry with Cabot, in the custom colour masterbatch industry with Americhem and in the white pigment industry with Huntsman Pigments. Martin holds a Dipl. Ing. (Univ.) degree in chemical engineering from the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany.
Paul Ita runs Notch Consulting, a Massachusetts-based research company dedicated to the market research needs of the global specialty chemicals industry. Mr. Ita focuses on raw materials for the global tire and rubber industries, with a particular focus on carbon black, silica, and rubber chemicals. Through Notch, he publishes the Carbon Black World Data Book and the Carbon Black Quarterly Newsletter.
Dr. Andreas Topp holds the position as Continental’s Vice-President for Material & Process Development and Industrialization Tires. The organization of Dr. A. Topp is responsible for innovating, developing, and industrializing new technologies in the field of raw materials, rubber compounding, and smart processing solutions for tire manufacturing.
In previous functions within the tire organization of Continental, Dr. A. Topp held positions with responsibility on classic material research & development. Moreover, he has held various management positions in the field of original equipment and replacement PLT tire product development as well.
Dr. A. Topp holds a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Cologne, Germany. Prior to starting his career at Continental, Dr. A. Topp worked on a postdoctoral grant at the NIST in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA, focussing on the structural analysis and fundamental studies on dendrimers and hyperbranched 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.
Claus has been leading commercial (financing) and technical projects for over 40 years. Since 2010 Claus has been working exclusively in sustainability projects (biodiesel production, bio-waste-to-energy, offshore wind power, chemothermical depolymerization). He oversaw the first successfully implemented approval process for an end-of-life tire pyrolysis project in Austria. Claus has been working with the Weibold team since 2021 and is responsible for assessing the feasibility of technical implementation projects for waste tires and plastic, approval issues and chemical registrations.
Breno Asprino has a BBA from Pontifica Universidade Catolica (PUV) Brazil and an MBA. He has senior executive experience in the chemical, telecom and renewable energy sectors. Since 2013 he has led PXA projects, equipment contracts, factory assembly, startup, M&S development, and O&M. He is now the leader for PXA consolidation and growth.
Chris has over 25 years of experience as a materials scientist and joined ARTIS after gaining a PhD in the area of self-healing composites from the University of Bristol in 2012. At ARTIS, Chris leads a team of eleven scientists and technicians who have developed a detailed understanding of materials recovery processes from waste rubber goods and have made major contributions to the fundamental knowledge of the behaviour of recovered fillers.
Dr Hallett has worked in the polymer industry for over 25 years, including 15 years with Birla Carbon. He has held a number of roles including product design, research and development and customer support. For the past three years he has been part of the core team introducing circular materials to Birla Carbon and is now the technical lead for Birla Carbon’s Continua™ SCM product range.
Prof. Dr. Jorge Lacayo-Pineda is Head of the Expert Field for Materials Evaluation at Continental, Tires, and has hold different executive positions in the Materials Labs of Continental since 1998. He is Honorary Professor at the Leibniz University of Hanover and Visiting Professor at the Qingdao University of Science & Technology. He is Chairman of Sub-Committee D11.20 Rubber Compounding Materials & Processes of ASTM International, member of the US Delegation to ISO TC 45 – Rubber & Rubber Products, Convener of the ISO Working Group TC45/SC2/WG5 Chemical Tests of Rubber, and member of the Board Council of the German Rubber Society.
Celso Magri, who has more than 20 years of experience in the chemical industry, has developed and launched products based on recycled sources for the automotive and consumer electronics industries. After joining Orion in 2020, he created the sustainability strategy for the rubber business at the specialty chemical company. Mr. Magri’s current focus is enabling the tire and rubber value chain to transition to the circular economy.
He has an MSc Engineering from University of Sao Paulo, an MBA from London Business School and is a certified engineer in Brazil and Germany.
Dr. Cristina Bergmann is Business Development Director Process Oils at Ergon International Inc. and has more than 15 years of experience in Specialty Products (Chemicals and Oils), Materials and Technologies markets with strong emphasis on Automotive industry. She has held various positions at Continental Tires, LANXESS Deutschland GmbH and Hansen & Rosenthal.
She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the German Rubber Society DKG (Deutsche Kautschuk-Gesellschaft) since 2015.
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Alex Bowles is a final year PhD student at Imperial College, London. His research focusses on high-value product recovery from waste tyres, with particular focus on tyre derived activated carbon. Alex has been investigating tyre recycling for four years, and prior to his PhD, researched the potential of waterjet granulation of car tyres. Alex draws on the experience of his PhD supervisor, Dr Geoffrey Fowler. Geoff is a Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College, London, and has over 30 years of experience in the tyre recycling sector. Geoff’s research focusses on pyrolysis and manages a world-leading laboratory with 5 different pyrolysis reactors and a wide array of characterisation instrumentation.
Tommi Pajala, MSc in energy technology and BSc in automation technology, has worked with pyrolysis and recycling technology for more than 20 years and founded the recycling technology company Ecomation in 2007. At the moment Tommi serves as the company's chief operating officer, responsible for product development, technology and the project operations. He is considered one of Finland’s leading experts in slow pyrolysis technology.
Franz studied Chemistry at the TU Chemnitz and at the TU Graz and then did his PhD in the Atmospheric Physic group at ETH Zürich. His research field was the investigation atmospheric aging process on soot particles and how this contributes to the formation of clouds. During that time Franz used a broad range of aerosol-based instrumentation to observe changes in the morphology and chemistry of isolated soot particles. Based on this work, he was granted with 195 kCHF by the SNSF (Swiss National Science Foundation) and Innosuisse over 18-months to develop a new method for the online-characterisation of the structure and surface of Carbon Black and similar materials. He is now commercialising this new analytical approach via his own company, FemtoG.
Paulina Rumian is R&D Laboratory Manager at MAKROchem S.A. She is also a PhD student in Material Engineering at Gdańsk University of Technology
Kees van Oostenrijk is founder and CEO of RecyBEM, founded in 2004 as an ELT-management company within the framework of ETRMA and (extended) producers’ responsibility. It is one of the 25 national operating ELT-producer systems in Europe. Kees is a graduate of the Free University in Amsterdam in Business Economics and Marketing and has had senior executive positions in the manufacturing of textiles, plastics and rubber/ELTs. He has contributed to raising awareness of environmental affairs to a level of commitment to sustainable circular materials/ circular economy: savings on CO2 and costs, savings on the use of virgin materials, making re-usable, recycled, bio-materials.
2002-2008: Mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University.
Degree: Diploma
2008-2015: Research Scientist at the Institute of Aerodynamics and Chair of Fluid Mechanics of RTWH Aachen University.
Doctoral Degree (“Dr.-Ing.”) in 2014
Since 2015: Engineer in the R&D department of NEUMAN & ESSER Process Technology GmbH. Responsible for grinding and classifying development projects.
Krzysztof Wróblewski is a chemical and process engineer who gained his first pyrolysis experiences at Warsaw University of Technology as a member of research team and quickly became one of the designers of new technology at Contec. Taking part in the construction and leading the startup of the plant allowed him to implement and test new ideas. Now, as CEO, Krzysztof is still developing new solutions to perfect the process performance.
Mr. Sorella is currently Chairman and CEO of Ecolomondo, a publicly listed green tech company trading on the TSX Venture Exchange under ticker symbol ECM, that specializes in the processing of hydrocarbon waste. He has also been the CEO of Futurplast Extrusions for the last 20 years, and CEO of the Sorella Group of Companies since 1995.
Mr. Sorella holds a Bachelor of Commerce Degree in Accounting from Loyola College.
Mr. Pascal Klein is CEO and Chairperson of the Executive Board of Pyrum. He is a founding member of the company and served as General Director of Pyrum ESC GmbH since 2008. From 2018 he has held the positions as Chairperson of the Executive Board, CEO, CFO and COO of the Company and is also a board member of Pyrum S.A.
Mr Klein received his bachelor degree in 2006 in "International Management" from ISEG Strasbourg and in 2008, he received his master's degree in Business Administration (MBA) at ISM Paris and St. Johns' University New York. He won the “Concours Lépine” in 2017 and was named national winner of the “Founder Campion for Innovation” in 2012.
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