Material Recovery and Evaluation of Recycled Disassembled Automotive Plastic Components: Enabling the Automotive Circular Economy

As the automotive industry increasingly relies on plastic components to meet fuel efficiency and emissions targets, the challenge of managing end-of-life vehicle (ELV) plastics continues to grow. Currently, more than 80% of ELV plastics in the U.S. are landfilled due to limited economic incentives and technical barriers to recycling. This study examines a mechanical recycling pathway for thermoplastic components disassembled from End-of-Life Vehicles (ELVs) and assesses their usability for reintegration into new vehicle parts. Four representative materials were chosen based on material labels embedded in recovered parts and aligned with their virgin industrial equivalents: polypropylene (PP), 10% talc-filled PP (PP-T10), 20% talc-filled PP (PP-T20), and a 20% glass/mineral-filled polyamide (PA6+GF7+MF13). The materials underwent shredding, drying, and injection molding before being characterized by particle size analysis, density measurement, thermal analysis (TGA, DSC), mechanical testing, and heat deflection temperature (HDT) evaluation. Results indicate that while minor changes in density and crystallinity occurred, mechanical properties such as Young’s Modulus and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) remained largely within functional ranges for automotive applications, particularly for filled PP and PA6 samples. These findings suggest that mechanically recycled, disassembled ELV plastics can retain sufficient structural performance to support circularity efforts in the automotive sector.