The sustainable resource management of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) has become an issue of concern in Germany, as the automobile industry is a main pillar of the German economy as well as a well-known heavyweight on the global economic scene. New technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence, an autonomous system, and electric batteries with energy savings, are rapidly entering markets, altering the number of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs), which is predicted to grow. The high consumer demand for new vehicles has resulted in a massive backlog of ELVs awaiting treatment. Plastic makes up around half of the volume of a modern automobile and most of them are metalized.
Based on a recycling process for metalized PC/ABS (polymer blend of polycarbonate and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) developed in laboratory scale, a review of relevant statistics, and literature the sustainability of the industrial scale-up has been assess in this paper. Therefore, a material-flow analysis (MFCA) and life cycle analysis (LCA) of metalized PC/ABS in ELVs was performed to elucidate the resource recovery, material efficiency and environmental safety. This paper also analyses the implications of optimizing by-products (Copper, Nickel, and Chromium) and their volatile prices on overall revenue in order to assure profitability, as it is a core part in enabling the circular economy and capturing value in industry. The high purity of the recovered materials led to higher redemption values for metal and PC/ABS, according to the MFCA findings.
As a result, the value-added of metalized plastic waste is maximized, indicating an extremely favourable economic prognosis for a moderate-scale commercial implementation. Metalized plastic waste recycling has also been shown to have lower environmental impacts than primary production.
The   authors   acknowledge   the   financial support from the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi)) for funding the project (funding reference: ZF4774501CM9) by Zentrale Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand (ZIM).
Keywords: end-of-life vehicles; recycling; material-flow analysis; life cycle analysis; PC/ABS; urban mining; chrome-plated recycling.