Project aims to place recycled plastics front and center in cars

Premium car maker Jaguar Land Rover is preparing to enter new territory and use recycled plastics in the passenger cabin to make interior trim with a Class A surface.

“We already use compounds with recycled content,” said Robert Crow, group leader — materials innovation in Engineering Technical Services at Jaguar Land Rover. “The Range Rover L405 has about 34 kilograms of recycled plastic content and the Evoque has about 16 kilograms. But none of those parts have surfaces that customers can touch and feel.”

Car makers have been increasing the volume of recycled plastics in many components as part of efforts to meet European Union targets for incorporating recycled materials in vehicles. But until now, Class A surfaces have been a no-go area as polymer compounds that include recyclate have just not been able to meet the performance demands needed for interior trim.

That may be about to change, though, as Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is part of the Recyclite project, in which the company and its partners recycler and compounder Luxus Ltd., equipment supplier Coperion GmbH and auto supplier International Automotive Components expect to commercialize polypropylene compounds that have high scratch resistance and are also lighter than existing compounds. 

Crow described the project as a “double win” because the use of recycled material and lower weight of the compounds are both beneficial in JLR's program for reducing the environmental impact of its vehicles. The car maker uses an approach based on Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) which takes into account all factors that can affect a product's environmental footprint.

“We don't set recycled content using a weight target; we have a LCA target per vehicle line,” he said.

The data generated by suppliers during manufacturing — for example, energy they use during production — is used by JLR in its LCAs. These LCAs inform decisions on materials that will be used in new car models, such as the high ratio of recycled aluminum used in the 2014 Jaguar XE.

“The LCA is not just a tracking tool. We also use it predictively to drive new technologies into vehicles,” said Crow.

In the two-year Recyclite project, which is co funded by the Eco-Innovation initiative of the European Union, Louth, England-based Luxus will develop its Hycolene range of lightweight PP compounds with up to 60 percent recycled content. The project's funding has allowed the company to buy a new twin screw co-rotating extruder from Coperion, which is working closely with Luxus on scaling up production of Hycolene compounds to make commercial quantities on the new equipment. The screw configuration and feed system, using a Coperion K Tron unit, are key focus areas.

JLR and Tier 1 interior supplier IAC, with global headquarters in Luxembourg, will test the compounds in a demonstrator part during the project. Crow said this is a large Class A component in a current model, which they have chosen because it is technically challenging in terms of its form and performance.

It is too early to say in which production parts the Hycolene compounds will first be used. Crow said: “We use a lot of talc-filled PP, so there are a whole host of parts the compounds could go into.”

The cabin interior is an untapped application area for recycled polymers because of very high performance and decorative quality demands. Crow said projects like Recylite help JLR address performance concerns.

“The project is about giving us confidence to use recycled compounds,” he said.

Luxus has worked with JLR for some time, but the project set-up helps in facilitating the type of open discussion at a higher level that enables better understanding of JLR's ongoing development work.

Peter Atterby, managing director at Luxus, paid tribute to the group of partners in the Recyclite project: “It's a good consortium. In a normal sales relationship, it can be difficult to understand the future needs of the customer. This project helps break down those barriers.”

In meeting the challenges presented in the project, Luxus expects to not only deliver compounds with the scratch resistance needed for Class A parts, but also with greater stiffness and a lower weight per part than existing talc- and chalk-filled PP compounds. 

It is doing this by using next generation reinforcing additives based on a synthetic mineral fibre. This means the Hycolene compounds have a lower density than current filled PP grades and can reduce part weight by up to 12 percent. As well as reducing weight, injection molders will be able to produce more parts per tonne of the mineral as they will benefit from a much faster cycle time. This will offset the slightly higher price these new advanced grades will require, said Luxus.

Atterby said the company is planning to produce three to five different compounds, and there will be different grades within those products.

 Performance requirements for car interior trims are continually increasing, especially in terms of the quality of the surface finish. “It's a changing market and consumers are making bigger quality demands all the time,” said Atterby. “What is in one generation an A surface quality, may become a next generation B surface.”

With that trend in view, Luxus is aiming to future-proof the Hycolene compounds by creating a series that can be adapted to future market developments.

Luxus expects to gain a 2 percent share of the EU interior trim market by 2016. But its capacity to produce the new compounds will be limited by access to local sources of PP recyclate. So the company intends to license its IP of Hycolene formulations and knowledge to other selected compounders in the EU which have access to source-assured PP recyclate locally.

“A big issue for automotive companies is globalization of the supply chain,” said Atterby. That concern applies in this project just as it does in other areas. 

There are a variety of different plastics waste streams, including new ones that are emerging, but for the new compounds the recyclate will be sourced from readily available waste streams, he said.

“We envisage the Hycolene compounds having the same price as prime,” said Atterby. This is because there is equivalence in performance and production costs, whether the compounds use recyclate or prime feedstock.”