Audi's MaterialLoop Project Uses Recycled Car Parts in the Production of New Vehicles

MaterialLoop is a joint project between Audi and 15 partners from the research, recycling, and supplier sectors. It aims to test the circular economy potential of end-of-life vehicles or, in simpler terms, to use materials taken from customer vehicles at the end of their lifecycle.

Currently, only some materials used to produce new vehicles are recovered from old ones. For instance, steel is a critical component in cars, and it usually ends up as structural steel after being recycled. Audi plans to reuse secondary materials to produce new vehicles as well, with an emphasis on avoiding downcycling, which is the loss of quality in materials after recycling. This way, the brand can save valuable primary materials and reduce its products’ ecological footprint.

Another advantage of this approach, especially in the current context, is increased security of supply, as fewer raw materials would have to be extracted.

As part of the MaterialLoop project, in October last year, 100 vehicles were dismantled, and secondary materials, such as large plastic pieces, were retained for recycling. After the complete disassembly, the remaining car bodies were shredded. With the help of the partner companies, the materials were sorted into four groups: steel, aluminum, plastic, and glass.

The focus is not only on refitting the materials in new models but also on making new Audi vehicles able to be recycled. Dennis Meinen, an expert on circular economy at Audi, explained: “At its core, circular economy is about handling resources responsibly. Longevity, repairability, and, indeed, our products’ ability to be recycled are thus all in focus.”

But let’s see how Audi puts these valuable findings from the MaterialLoop project into practice. Some materials are already being put back into vehicle production. For instance, the automaker gives new life to recycled scrap steel in producing the Audi A4.

The company performed an initial trial in which six steel coils were produced from around 12% secondary MaterialLoop materials. Although you might assume the resulting material isn’t as good as the primary one, it’s, in fact, made to match Audi’s standard and can be used for the most demanding structural components.

Audi plans to use the coils to manufacture up to 15,000 inner door parts for the A4 at the Ingolstadt press plant. Furthermore, according to the research carried out as part of the project, increasing the portion of recycled steel in the coils is possible.

The collaboration with the project partners has provided valuable insights for the four-ring brand regarding the construction and design of future models. Besides optimizing the sorting technology, Audi also focuses on engineering its automotive parts and components to be sorted by material type during end-of-life recycling.

Another good result that has emerged from the MaterialLoop project is that, together with Volkswagen, Audi has created a guide for suppliers that details how to design plastic parts to increase the rate of recycling in the industry. This is a beneficial move for the whole industry, as Audi offers access to knowledge that can help the entire industry become more sustainable.

Steel recycling is just one of the directions Audi has explored in the MaterialLoop project. Another target the automaker has set is to steadily grow the share of recyclates in its fleet in the upcoming years. Audi procurement is establishing material cycles where possible and if it makes ecological and economic sense.

Another material with the potential for recycling is glass – Audi started to become more familiar with recycling used automotive glass in the spring of 2022. The brand carried out another pilot project where unrepairable car windows were broken into small pieces and then recycled. Then, the glass granulate was melted down and transformed into new plate glass, already used in the production of the Q4 e-tron.

Next, we have the material most of us think about when we hear of recycling. Of course, I’m talking about plastic. Audi is heavily invested in plastic recycling, with three projects. One of them is PlasticLoop – Audi has collaborated with plastics manufacturer LyondellBasell to create a chemical recycling process to reuse mixed automotive plastic waste. The resulting material will be used in the series production of the Audi Q8 e-tron.

Lastly, another material worth recycling is aluminum – since 2017, aluminum has been managed within a recycling circle at Audi’s Ingolstadt, Neckarsulm, and Gyor sites. Aluminum offcuts resulting during production are returned to the supplier, which recycles them into aluminum sheets of the same quality. Audi then reuses them in production, thus saving precious primary raw materials.

Hopefully, the automotive sustainability trend isn’t limited to creating emission-free vehicles, and car brands will consider recycling more and more in the future.