Audi has embarked on a pilot project that will recycle damaged and irreparable automobile glass and allow it to be used in new cars. Automobile glass and sunroofs, which can only be recycled for use in products such as bottles and insulation materials, will be transformed into glass that can be used in automobiles again thanks to the project. If the process is successful, this recycled plate glass will be used in the Audi Q4 e-tron series.
As part of its circular economy strategy, Audi is implementing a new pilot project that will enable automobile glass to be used in a closed material cycle, as part of its circular economy strategy.
Audi and its subsidiaries, acting from the fact that old automobile glasses cannot be used to produce new automobile glasses; Reiling Glas Recycling, Saint-Gobain Glass and Saint-Gobain Sekurit conduct pioneering work in recycling damaged automobile glass.
Currently, the majority of waste automobile glass or panoramic sunroofs are turned into beverage bottles or insulating materials. With this project, if the reuse of damaged automobile glass is successful, less energy will be used in the production of new ones and the demand for primary materials such as quartz sand will be reduced.
The first step is homogeneous separation of the components
In the first leg of the project, the non-repairable glasses are first broken into small pieces and processed in Reiling Glas Recycling. Acting on the requirement that automobile windows meet the strictest requirements on issues such as collision safety, the company uses modern and powerful equipment to restore damaged glass to its original quality. The company separates all non-glass materials such as PVB (polyvinyl butyral) plastic sheets in glass, window sills, metals, antenna cables.
The second step is to convert to glass
After the glass recycling is processed and all possible waste materials are separated, Saint-Gobain Glass transforms this material into glass plate. The glass granule is initially sorted by type for clear verification of origin and colour, and then stored in special boxes. The material is mixed with quartz sand, sodium carbonate and chalk, the main components of glass, to produce the purest, most homogeneous glass possible.
Plate glass is first processed into rectangles of approximately 3 x 6 meters each. Later, these plates are turned into automobile glass with an additional process by Saint-Gobain Sekurit, the third company of the project.
With its pilot project, Audi plans to put into production up to 30 thousand tons of parts in the next three years. In the final step, new windows will be used for the Audi Q4 e-tron series.
Deciding to put the process to the test for a year in order to learn about material quality, stability and costs, the partners aim to use these glasses made from secondary materials in the Audi Q4 e-tron series, if they can recycle the glass in an economically and ecologically meaningful way.
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