Recycling of Automotive Plasticized PVC

Manufacturing of new vehicles and treatment of End-of-Life vehicles generate PVC to recycle.
According to PVC characteristics (raw material or compound, new or several year old material) specific recycling technologies are used.

PVC from Production Scraps

During car construction, some PVC scraps are produced. These materials are either pure PVC materials or compounded materials with fibres.
It is easy to recycle pure PVC. This recycled PVC then can be reused in many applications.

Fabrics based on PVC need more sophisticated recycling technologies, because of their content in fibres (polyester, polyamide or cotton).
In order to recycle PVC fabrics, CHAIZE, a French company, has developed an innovative process by densification, which allows generating a new material called "Pévéchouc". (See «Recycled PVC applications» to get specifications and applications of this material).

PVC from ELV (End of Life Vehicles)

In order to cope with the different ways to recover ELV, two main PVC recycling technologies are developed and tested in new applications.

PVC coming from dismantling of ELV:

PVC waste coming from dismantling of ELV is generally rather clean or may be somewhat contaminated by other materials. These materials can be easily recycled by using a densification process (CHAIZE process). Nevertheless, collecting of waste remains an issue.

Dès lors cette matière peut être recyclée pour des applications bien adaptées comme la fabrication de tapis, ou de semelles de chaussures. Consequently, this PVC material can be used in suitable applications as shoe soles or carpet undercoating. Some new applications, as rolls for handling trolleys or reels, are developing for recycled PVC coming from dismantling of ELV. This is a big potential market, which figures a volume of several thousands of tonnes in France.

PVC coming from shredding of ELV:

PVC waste coming from Automotive Shredder Residues (ASR) is mixed with other polymers and miscellaneous materials.
Today, there are two ways to dispose of ASR: land filling or energy recovery in municipal waste incinerators.

A new recycling technology, in which ASR is extruded in shape of bars and ground in fine powder, is under development.

For the powder, new applications are investigated, as fillers in concretes used in bricks, tubes, walls or pavement edges. Extruded bars have a high calorific value, and thus are attractive to energy recovery.

Using "VINYLOOP" process enables to dissolve the waste from ASR, which has a high content in PVC. This technology produces PVC compounds possibly recycled in garden hoses, floor coverings and road surfaces.

ENSAM studies the best way to treat instrument panels, which contains different polymers. ENSAM has set up a pilot facility for sorting these materials.

The recycling scheme (file PDF) below figures what are the different ways to recycle automotive plasticized PVC.:
Diagram of the Applications Recycled (size file pdf to be downloaded: 449 Ko)