Recycling of plastics in electric vehicles
pinfa workshop with automotive industry experts concludes need to develop knowledge and technologies for recycling, 18th September 2024, Munich. Participants included pinfa members including PIN flame retardant manufacturers, polymer compounders and distributors, as well as around twenty experts from the automotive industry, ranging from raw material producers to Tier 1 suppliers. In six sessions, the state of the art of automotive plastics recycling and challenges for the future were discussed. The workshop identified as a priority the optimisation of sorting, dismantling and recycling stream management. This is complex, because of the wide variety of cars (age, materials used, type of engine). Economy of scale is a significant obstacle, and a challenge is the development of technologies to separate different polymer types with different additives, including different flame retardants. The advantages and disadvantages of dismantling vehicles prior to shredding were discussed: dismantling increases labour costs, but facilitates separation, and so improves recycling as mixing of materials can be reduced. The workshop noted that material stabilisation and upgrading was important to enable recycling to technical applications with demanding requirements from OEMs. The workshop concluded that implementation of recycling of end-of-life automotive technical plastics is a real challenge for the future. We need to start working on potential solutions now in cooperation throughout the whole value chain. Participants concluded on three actions:
- Mapping of flame retardants used in different polymers across automotive applications.
- Analysis of ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ shredding fractions, from different vehicle end-of-life operators, and comparison with literature data, to identify which flame retardants are present and what are the recycling options.
- Mechanical recycling trials using real car parts, produced with representative polymers and adjusting flame retardant and other additives levels.
“Exploring Sustainable Solutions – Flame Retardant Additives and Plastics Recycling in the Automotive Industry”, technical workshop for pinfa members, 18th September 2024, Munich. Information contact: pinfa secretariat pinfa@cefic.be
