Abstract
This study was initiated in order to find alternative fuel substituting for light oil the most common fuel for heating greenhouse. The tire oil used in this research was produced by pyrolysis process, one of the final products besides steel string and carbon black in which waste tires as a form of chopped pieces broken by shredding machine are heated up to 200~30$0^{\circ}C$ with maximum restraining of oxygen supply. In order to justify light oil equivalent qualities in tire oil combustion characteristics were defined in the way of comparing kinetic viscosities in the wide range of temperature flame sizes and exhaust gas components in the various combustion conditions. We found that kinetic viscosity of tire oil was lower than light oil by 1 to 2 cSt in the temperature range showing better flowing mobility in the fuel line of the burner and no significant difference in flame size between the two oils in the all combustion treatments. However much more NO and SO$_2$ were detected from the exhaust gases of tire oil than light oil combustions. In fact tire oil contains more nitrogen and total sulfur, by 25 times and 40 times respectively than light oil according to the composition analysis. Tolerable limit for SO$_2$discharge amount defined by the national air pollution standards is under 540ppm so tire oil combustion satisfies the requirement though. It is desirable if sulfur and nitrogen filtering process shall be added in the tire oil production line. Except the exhaust gas components all greenhouse heating qualities of tire oil including hot air temperature are very identical to those of light oil.
