Defective automobile home windows typically go within the recycling bin when the cracked half can’t be fastened. A closed materials circuit doesn’t but exist for broken automobile glass. That is the place Audi and its companion corporations Reiling Glas Recycling, Saint-Gobain Glass, and Saint-Gobain Sekurit are actually doing pioneering work as a part of a joint pilot mission.
The companion corporations wish to flip the broken auto glass into recyclable materials for mannequin manufacturing and have drawn up a multi-stage course of for that goal. Utilizing an progressive recycling course of, the automobile home windows are first damaged into small items. Then all of the non-glass impurities akin to glue residue are eradicated. The ensuing glass granulate is melted down and changed into new plate glass. That plate glass is then changed into a brand new automobile window. If this pilot is profitable, the home windows which might be produced this manner will likely be utilized in fashions within the Audi This fall e-tron collection sooner or later.
The glass recycling pilot mission begins with chosen dealerships within the Volkswagen Group’s retail community. Prospects whose automobiles have a broken window arrange appointments there. The retail companion checks to see if the window might be repaired. If it can’t, the window is changed. The damaged pane is delivered to Volkswagen’s Unique Teile Logistik GmbH & Co. KG. This Volkswagen subsidiary organizes the disposal of elements which might be now not wanted from Volkswagen AG workshops. Service companions take away automobile windowpanes from that course of for recycling.
Within the subsequent step, the broken windowpanes are delivered to Reiling Glas Recycling. There, they’re first damaged up into small items and processed. Within the course of, Reiling places the previous automobile glazing again into plate glass manufacturing for the primary time.
The corporate types out non-glass supplies akin to PVB (polyvinyl butyral) plastic layers within the glass, window edgings, metals, and wires, akin to heating filament and antenna cables. The elimination course of is carried out utilizing magnets, non-ferrous metallic separators, extraction items, and electro-optical sorting items. Sooner or later, such PVB layers are additionally meant to be launched right into a automobile circuit.
Within the subsequent recycling step after the glass recyclate has been processed and all potential waste supplies have been eliminated, Saint-Gobain Glass turns it into plate glass in Herzogenrath, Germany. To do this, the glass granulate is initially segregated by sort for clear verification of supply and colour after which saved in bins. Producing new base glass requires the purest, most homogeneous glass recyclate potential.
Saint-Gobain Glass then mixes the recyclate with, amongst different issues, quartz sand, sodium carbonate, and chalk—the essential elements of glass. In the mean time, the proportion of recylate to different supplies varies between 30 and 50%.
The goal for the pilot mission with Audi is about 40 tons of recycled automobile glass.
The plate glass is first processed into rectangles of about 3 x 6 meters (10 x 20 toes) every. After that, the affiliated firm Saint-Gobain Sekurit produces automotive glass via an extra course of.
Past the pilot mission with Audi, Saint-Gobain Glass plans to place as much as 30,000 tons of shards into manufacturing in Herzogenrath throughout the subsequent three years, which can save a substantial quantity of power and pure assets and cut back carbon emissions and water use. That may imply that the corporate will emit as much as 75 tons much less CO₂ from a typical day’s tonnage.
The three companion corporations have determined to place the method to an preliminary one-year take a look at in order that they will find out about materials high quality, stability, and prices. If glass might be recycled in a cost-effective and an ecologically significant approach, automobile home windows constructed from secondary supplies will likely be used within the Audi This fall e-tron collection.
