The crumb rubber production industry is dominated by two core technologies: ambient grinding that involves mechanical size reduction of the rubber at ambient temperatures and cryogenic grinding that entails freezing rubber using liquid nitrogen until it becomes brittle and can be easily crushed by a hammermill to desired size.  Both processes generally allow manufacturers to economically produce material of 10-30 mesh.

However, there is a clear lack of processing technology in the market that would allow for the production of ultra-fine material of 80 mesh and finer at manageable operating costs.  It is precisely the material of that size that is required by the tire and rubber manufacturers, who can use ultra-fine ground rubber as an ingredient in the production of newly manufactured rubber products.