In the Dark Ages (that’s the real Dark Ages, not a couple of decades ago), alchemists sweated over the transmutation of base metals into gold.
It was a good idea, though achieving their goal would inevitably have made the yellow stuff worth little more than the base metal they were made from.
These days, metallurgists and chemists are studying a less fanciful but similar kind of problem: recycling materials to the same “A” quality they started life with.
Recycling steel, for example, may sound simple, but it’s not, and according to Audi, few of the materials taken from old cars, including steel, are reused in new cars. Therefore, instead of reusing recycled steel from scrap cars for the body, chassis, suspension or other components, it is more likely to be used in the construction industry.
This degradation of materials when they are recycled, whether metals or plastics and known as ‘downcycling’, is what the collaborative project Material Loop, of which Audi is a partner, investigates.
The project aims to move recycling to a circular process, recovering what was put in, but with the same level of quality that allows it to be reused in cars. In this way, the environmental footprint of a car becomes more favorable and less raw material is extracted.
It also ensures greater security of supply, which is not just limited to energy these days. Work began in October 2022 on the dismantling of cars, including 100 development Audis.
The bodies were crushed and materials such as steel, aluminum, plastic and glass were separated. The project will run until the end of April, but Audi is already taking advantage of the experience gained and some high-quality recycled materials are being used in the production of new cars.
The project has produced six sheet steel coils that meet the standard required for virgin steel but include 12% recycled steel.
Aluminum recycling is already well established in the industry and Jaguar Land Rover, for example, has been using recycled aluminum in its bodywork for many years.
As with Audi and others, scrap aluminum scraps from press shops are collected and returned to the producer of the raw material. There is no reduction in the quality of recycled aluminum, although it does need a percentage of pure “seed” aluminum to meet the required standards.
If you want the energy equation of aluminum car construction to make sense, recycling is vital. Aluminum reduces energy consumption during use by making cars lighter, but producing virgin aluminum consumes energy and the benefits are slight.
