Low consumer acceptance hinders recycled materials promotion; policy incentives and constraints are required.(1)
According to a recent report by The Paper, seven government departments including the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) have jointly issued the Action Plan for the Promotion and Application of Recycled Materials. Among the content, automobiles are listed as one of the key products for expanding the application of recycled materials.
The Action Plan proposes that automobile manufacturers should be encouraged to increase the application ratio of recycled steel, non-ferrous metals and glass, focusing on components such as frames, vehicle bodies, glass and wheels. They should also take the lead in achieving large-scale application of recycled plastics in interior and exterior trim parts. Meanwhile, automobile manufacturers are encouraged to collaborate with enterprises engaged in end-of-life vehicle dismantling, recycled materials processing and parts production to jointly build a closed-loop supply system for recycled materials.
Recycled materials link the two ends of production and consumption. What are the difficulties in promoting the application of recycled materials in the current automotive industry? From November 5 to December 12, researchers from The Paper Research Institute conducted in-depth exchanges with automobile OEMs, recycled materials enterprises, and experts from industry associations.
The research found that enterprises need to establish a collaborative "design-recycling" mechanism, fully consider the issue of future end-of-life recycling during the product design phase, and closely integrate design and R&D with market feedback. Meanwhile, the widespread application and promotion of recycled materials are essentially determined by consumer demand. In terms of green products at the market end, it is also necessary to expand green consumption scenarios and gradually activate the market through government encouragement and support.
Prioritize recycling at the production and design stage
The source of recycled materials lies at the production end. At present, the design of automotive products prioritizes performance and cost while neglecting subsequent recycling needs. For instance, processes such as the use of composite materials, complex splicing of different materials, and spray coating on aluminum make it difficult to separate various materials during dismantling or increase the costs of decomposition and impurity removal.
In addition, green design lacks unified technical specifications. For example, there are no clear guidelines on which aluminum alloy grades are more conducive to recycling or which connection processes facilitate dismantling. Therefore, consideration should be given starting from the materials used in product design to ensure the quality of recycled materials and then guarantee the safety performance of products.
Recyclability should be prioritized during the product design phase. As we understand it, a growing number of automobile OEMs are considering the adaptability of easily disassembled, easily sorted, and high-recyclable-ratio materials at the initial stage of product design, so as to ensure that the products not only meet performance requirements but also facilitate future recycling.
Circular business is not merely about "end-of-life disposal"; instead, it directly participates in and inversely shapes the design logic of complete vehicles and components. The Circular Industry Center of Geely Auto not only runs its own dismantling plant, but also engages in the entire business chain covering material classification, dismantling, shredding and regeneration, and has established a traceability system to realize vehicle-to-vehicle closed-loop application.
Therefore, throughout the full life cycle of vehicles from operation to end-of-life phase, it can continuously feed back design optimization information to the R&D department. "Although such issues will gradually emerge in the market, they can be identified and discovered earlier and more systematically through the recycling, dismantling and conditioning sectors, and then fed back to the R&D team," said Zhang Ping, Technical Director of the Circular Industry Center of Geely Auto.
Based on the real-world usage and end-of-service data of these vehicles, on the one hand, the Circular Industry Center of Geely Auto provides targeted improvement recommendations to the R&D department in a feedback loop. These include how to optimize component structures to enhance dismantlability, how to consider the convenience of subsequent maintenance and servicing during the design phase, and how to reduce the risk of damage caused by complex structures or unreasonable sealing designs. These feedbacks are regularly compiled and integrated into the R&D process, serving as an important source of design optimization.
On the other hand, during the trial production and trial assembly phases of new vehicle models or new components, the R&D department also submits prototype vehicles or parts to the Circular Industry Center for verification and testing. Leveraging the center’s professional capabilities in dismantling and conditioning, potential issues are identified in advance from the perspectives of maintainability, dismantlability and recyclability.
At the same time, recycled aluminum enterprises and industry associations need to further advance the standardization of the industry. As we understand it, the existing product standards for aluminum alloy grades used in automobiles and other industrial applications are all based on primary aluminum. Given that recycled aluminum alloy grades are produced from scrap aluminum and have complex compositions, their composition requirements as aluminum alloy raw materials are different, and their application in different auto parts needs to be verified.
