Research for Closed-loop Recycling of Used Bumpers into New Bumpers

Abstract

Recently, in order to improve the global greenhouse effect, which is pointed out as the cause of abnormal weather phenomena due to rapid climate change, many efforts to reduce CO2 are being expanded to all industries. To this end, the automobile industry is also making efforts to measure and reduce the amount of CO2 generated from material production to scrapping by introducing the LCA method for the CO2 emissions generated in the entire life cycle of vehicle development, use, and scrapping. Closed-loop recycling for bumper is an activity consistent with the Circular economy advocated by the EU. After collecting and processing the used bumper, it can be compounded with virgin PP for new bumper material. At this time, we can save fossil-base resources according to portion of recycle source. This is an activity to reduce CO2 emission by minimizing it. We tried to increase recycling content as far as we can. However, because of compatibility by using different PP compounding applied to bumpers by each automaker, so we tried to find the best mixing ratio through several compounding tests to determine the optimal mixing ratio. Finally, we add other industry PCR resource in order to increase recycling ratio for the optimal compounding and prevent from deterioration of physical properties due to lack of compatibility.