To supply recycled polyamide to the automotive industry: Materials maker Envalor relies on Secara's chemical recycling technology to meet upcoming regulatory requirements

Provide automotive professionals with recycled polyamide 6 (PA 6). Faced with future regulatory standards, the German manufacturer Envalior has signed a memorandum of understanding with Secara, a compatriot specializing in closed loop recycling of polymers. This collaboration, underway to a year already, aims to tester and validate the proprietary catalytic depolymerization methodology of the German methodology company. The maneuver consists of a flux of mixed plastic discarded materials, to result in a circular caprolintam of high purity (chemical intermediate of PA 6), with a level of performance equivalent to virgin. The ambition of the two partners will also be to prove, to manufacturers and other automotive suppliers, that this recycled material will be immediately integrated into the PA recovery chains, without modifying the existing infrastructure to production, material design or even qualification procedures.

As a reminder, the entry into force on August 13, 2026 of the European regulation on end-of-life vehicles (ELVR) will change the situation to professionals in the sector. From 2032, its consumption requires that at least 15% of the plastic applied in new vehicles must come from recycled sources, this percentage growing to 25% by 2036. And it is crucial to consider that to each of these two percentages, a minimum sub-part. part of 20% recycled content must come from a closed loop, that is to say from materials recovered from end-of-life vehicles (VHU) or from disassembled parts pendant the phase of consumption of a vehicle (respectively, This represents 3% in 2032 and 5% in 2036).

In this context, PA 6 or polyamide 6.6 (PA 6.6) and polyethylene remain good candidates to the chemical recycling of post-consumer discarded materials to create automotive grade raw material. Several arguments work in their favor: the volumes of available discarded materials, the levels of flux or the disadvantages linked to mechanical recycling on this type of polymer. «Due to technical and condition constraints, mechanical recycling alone is insufficient to meet the closed loop standards of out-of-consumption vehicles in the plus demanding applications, "argues Arturr Völk, head stockings circular and carbon solutions at Envalior.

Launched in Aachen (Germany) in 2024, the start-up Secara has refined a heterogeneous catalytic processes system to technical plastics, making it possible to depolymer both PA 6, however also PA 6.6 or polycarbonates. «Our recycling process is designed to treat substantial flux of mixed manufacturing discarded materials containing inclusions such as glasses fibers, flame retardants and other additives or contaminants. We selectively decompose the target polymers present in these flux of discarded materials and convert them into immediately usable condition monomers ", summarizes Fabian Nagel, p-CEO of Secara.