LyondellBasell, Audi collaborate on sustainable seat buckle casings

LyondellBasell and Audi have collaborated on the development of a closed-loop process for mixed automotive plastic waste, the companies have announced. The project, part of Audi’s PlasticLoop project, will see the car maker installing plastic seatbelt buckle covers in its Q8 e-tron model that are made using chemically recycled plastic from LyondellBasell. It is the first time a stream of material which to date has been mostly only suitable for energy recovery, has been able to be recycled.

Plastic components from customer vehicles that can no longer be repaired are dismantled, shredded, and processed by chemical recycler SynCycle - a joint project of the Austrian companies Next Generation Group and BDI-BioEnergy International - into pyrolysis oil. The pyrolysis oil is then used as a raw material in LyondellBasell’s manufacturing process for the production of new plastics, replacing virgin fossil feedstocks. The recycled content is attributed to the Audi product via a mass balance approach.

"For the first time, we are using chemical recycling to recycle mixed automotive plastic waste into plastic granulate for automotive interior applications,” said Erik Licht, LyondellBasell Advanced Polymer Solutions New Business Development Director.

Materials produced from pyrolysis oil are of the same high quality as virgin materials and have the same properties. Chemical recycling offers an alternative to energy recovery and complements mechanical recycling.

"Audi's vision is to use secondary materials wherever it is technically possible, economically viable and ecologically beneficial,” said Philipp Eder, Project Manager for Circular Economy in the Supply Chain at Audi. “The PlasticLoop project is part of Audi's circular economy strategy and a good example of cross-sector cooperation within the Audi supply chain. Findings from the project are also incorporated into the product development of future vehicle projects via the "Design for Recycling" approach.”