One of the biggest environmental problems plaguing the world is the estimated one billion tyres lying in dumps around the world. The tyres cannot be easily disposed of or recycled and lie in massive dumps — some up to six football fields deep — leaking chemicals into the ground. Some catch fire spectacularly. These fires do not burn out easily. YouTube has videos showing tyre dumps on fire, spewing out thick black smoke and flames. The fires will last for days, the smoke for years. One tyre dumpsite was simmering deep in its bowels, releasing smoke for five incredible years.

“It is a common occurrence,” says Gopi Sekhar, CEO of SRI, who nonetheless believes he has found the solution to the rising mountains of discarded tyres around the world. He and his research team have created a compound which goes into making retread tires. More importantly, a light tyre for trucks, which was made with more than 14% recycled rubber, has been independently validated and tested by the Rubber Research Institute (RRI) of the Malaysian Rubber Board. The RRI noted that the performance of the tyre made by SRI was even better than that of a tyre made of virgin rubber (read full RRI report at http://magnumresources.net/investors/565).

An ecstatic Gopi welcomes the RRI validation. “What we have here is nothing less than the solution to the global tyre and rubber scrap problem. It will address not only the annual  accumulation [of tyres] but also the backlog in the landfills. The introduction of the Magnum SRI custom compound as an industrial raw material effectively means cost-effective value-added consumption, which will make it irresistible as a green raw material. We believe that this is the future of global rubber recycling,” he says.

The SRI compound has 14% of recycled content. Prior to this, manufacturers could not go above 2% recycled rubber as it would compromise the properties of the finished tyre. The compound, produced in RRI’s facility in Sungai Buloh, is formulated in pre-agreed proportions. This blending process turned out to be successful. Although it is a compound that comes from recycled rubber, Gopi prefers to call his discovery a technology that is a mixture of chemical and mechanical process.

The breakthrough is branded “Magnum SRI compound” as Gopi has licensed his discovery to a Nasdaq-listed company called Magnum D’Or Resources Inc, which describes itself as a next generation rubber recyling solutions company. The licensing arrangement is for the North American market and is on a revenue-sharing model. “There is no upfront cost to our partner and this way, I think we are showing our confidence in our technology to add income to our partners.”

Magnum is positioning itself to become a leader in rubber and scrap tyre recycling. While the technology has many potential applications, Gopi believes it is most useful in the retread tyre business. He points out that the retread business has become a fundamental part of the transport industry. “You no longer talk about OEM [original equipment manufacturer] or new tyres. No trucking business can be viable without using substantial retreads. In fact, only the two front tyres are new,” he says.

Gopi adds that tyre manufacturers, his target market, do not have to change any part of the manufacturing process (for the recycled tyres).
“I am giving the manufacturers a recyled material to add into the making of their retread tyres, where the end-product maintains a performance that the manufacturers demand and which does not require them to modify or change their manufacturing process.”
He points out that retread tyre manufacturers operate on such thin margins that even getting them to spend an extra one to two minutes more to do the mixing (in the manufacturing process) can cut a large amount of production from their throughput.

Closely guarded team
Gopi is guarded about the identity of his research team, saying the members have achieved something never attempted before and he wants to protect them and the discovery, too. A patent filing is on the cards. “Although I have no real experience in the rubber industry from a technology point of view, I have been involved in the various  processes (carried out). This is a new team I have assembled over three years,” he says.

“At first, I was the only one trying to do some research on my own. Then, I found a trusted person and slowly built the R&D team, which comprises fewer than 10 people. But now, we need to increase the numbers following our success and buy the necessary equipment. ”
The research proceeded slowly because he wanted to keep it under wraps from the beginning.

Sharing his research philosophy, Gopi says, “Nothing comes easily in research. I also believe you cannot have too many people working on the same thing, or you will lose your focus. I think you need to have specific functions in research and augment this with ongoing training as the research proceeds. When you reach the breaking point, that is when you expand the team.”

Gopi feels that by keeping the team small, there will be better cohesion and interaction. “It is amazing where real innovation comes from. It will likely come from the person who notices something while doing his work,” he says.

“The team needs to be more involved in what it is doing. I mean, we eat and sleep our work. We are hungry to make it happen and each success is something we all share. It is exciting for us as this is new gound as far as recyling tyres is concerned.”
His father, the late Tan Sri B C Sekhar would have nodded approvingly.

This article appeared in netv@lue2.0, the technology section of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 778 Oct 26 - Nov 1 2009