U.S. End-of-Life Vehicle Recycling CRADA Team

Overview

To achieve greater fuel-efficiency and safety, today’s cars incorporate an increasing share of innovative lightweighting materials. While these materials greatly enhance efficiency during vehicle use, they can present special challenges to recycling.

More than 75 percent of the car is made of metals which are essentially all recycled. Over 95 percent of vehicles in the United States go through a market-driven recycling infrastructure, with no added cost or tax to consumers. The U.S. ELV CRADA Team is working to raise that percentage of the weight of recycled vehicles to as close to 100 percent as possible.

The CRADA partners include the USCAR’s Vehicle Recycling Partnership, which represents Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Company and General Motors Corporation; Argonne National Laboratory; and the American Chemistry Council-Plastics Division.

The recycling infrastructure (download high resolution image)

Research

Thus far, the CRADA team impact has been broad and diverse. The team is

• Establishing and publishing preferred practices for recycling
• Establishing efficient fluid removal processes
• Researching separation technologies for commingled material streams
• Researching processes targeted at removing substances of concern from shredder residue, regardless of its source.

The team also ran a licensed Vehicle Recycling Development Center to establish procedures that optimize materials recovery in vehicle dismantling.

A plastics-sorting Pilot Plant in operation at Argonne is one of the more visible demonstrations of the CRADA team’s research in action (pilot plant fact sheet, 709kB). The team is also working to anticipate and meet recycling needs for components and parts in future and emerging vehicles, such as hybrids and fuel cell vehicles.

The CRADA Team actively seeks opportunities to work in collaboration with other major stakeholders. Sustainable ELV recycling is a global issue. For more information, contact Sam Jody.

Funding

The research of the US ELV CRADA Team is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Program, the Vehicle Recycling Partnership, and the American Chemistry Council-Plastics Division.

September 2008