Covestro joins BMW and Forvia in circular economy research project

Covestro has announced its information successful the Kollert probe task — a German publically funded, interdisciplinary consortium dedicated to processing recyclable merchandise concepts for automotive lighting, mechatronic and physics components.

The three-year project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) nether the CircularGlowUp backing model and supervised by the Karlsruhe Project Management Agency (PTKA), addresses 1 of the automotive industry's astir pressing challenges: however to support materials successful usage longer, trim assets consumption, and physique genuinely circular worth chains.

Kollert brings unneurotic Forvia Hella arsenic coordinator alongside partners BMW, Covestro, Geba, Fraunhofer IEM, Fraunhofer UMSICHT, the University of Paderborn, Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), and SW Maschinenservice.

The task runs from June 2026 to May 2029, with a full BMFTR backing measurement of €4.371 cardinal including task lump sums.

The automotive manufacture faces increasing unit from assets scarcity, proviso information concerns, and tightening regulatory requirements — astir notably the EU End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) Regulation. Technological hurdles, outgo pressure, and insufficient merchandise recyclability person truthful acold prevented businesslike plastics cycles from becoming established astatine scale, Covestro says. Kollert straight addresses this spread by placing "Design for Circularity" astatine its halfway — merchandise plan optimized for recyclability from the precise beginning, complemented by 4 R-strategies: Repair, Re-Use, Remanufacture, and Recycle.

Kollert researches however aboriginal lighting components tin beryllium made repairable, reusable, and recyclable — and what accumulation and logistics processes this requires.

As a cardinal materials spouse successful Kollert, Covestro contributes its expertise successful high-performance polymers and sustainable worldly solutions — moving crossed the afloat circular worth chain, from supporting circular merchandise plan and worldly concepts done to the valuation of recycling pathways for polycarbonate.

Covestro says its Makrolon, Bayblend and Apec materials are among the astir wide utilized plastics successful automotive lighting applications, and bringing these materials backmost into high-quality usage cycles is cardinal to the project's ambition. Covestro says its engagement ensures that worldly properties, recyclate quality, and end-of-life behaviour are afloat considered from the plan signifier onward — a prerequisite for existent circularity, and a nonstop look of Covestro's imaginativeness of a afloat circular economy.