Remanufacturing research
We regularly participate in publicly funded research projects in the field of remanufacturing.
Politecnico di Milano
POLIMI
prof. Marcello Colledani
Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology and Production Systems Lab
e-mail: marcello.colledani@polimi.it
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101138034
About the project
European remanufacturing industry is crucial for the sustainable transition of Europe and the advancement of the circular economy, thanks to the savings in energy, materials and functionality that is guaranteed by the process. In fact, the socio- economic benefits of remanufacturing, in terms of number of workers, skills development and technological uptake, are as impactful as the environmental benefits. However, to future-proof the European remanufacturing industry and increase its competitiveness, the obstacles facing the human worker need to be addressed as a matter of strategic urgency. Currently, established remanufacturing sectors recognised the barriers in the limited automation, poor human inclusion, lack of traceability and restricted use of digitalisation.
rEUman aims at developing and demonstrating a novel paradigm of human-centric remanufacturing approach for the European industry, acting at factory and value-chain levels. At the factory level, the main industrial need is to guarantee high regeneration rates of the remanufactured products and to achieve traceability of the remanufacturing process-chain. While at the value-chain level, the main industrial need is to guarantee stability in terms of volume and quality of the post-use products. rEUman shall demonstrate the new remanufacturing paradigm, which is intrinsically human-safe, target-driven in regeneration and certification, flexible while facing variability in post-use parts, robust and replicable to new circular business cases.
Ambition:
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To develop cutting edge remanufacturing approaches (factory level) and integrating them into the value-chain
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To demonstrate functional retention in three sectors (automotive, home appliances and optoelectronics)
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To introduce traceability in remanufacturing by implementing the first remanufacturing-centred digital product passport (DPP)
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To consider operational and economic viability by showcasing complete business cases supported by custom designed training material.
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About the project
The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is accelerating, with projections indicating that 75% of new cars registered in Europe will be electric by 2030. This shift is driven by regulations phasing out internal combustion engine vehicles in major markets. However, the production of EVs currently generates 80% more CO2e emissions compared to traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. This makes the manufacturing phase the most significant contributor to emissions in the EV lifecycle, yet it also presents the greatest opportunity for emission reduction.
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To address these challenges, Design for Circularity (DfC) strategies are being developed across the entire value chain to minimize the environmental impact of EV manufacturing. Despite these efforts, the diversity in EV designs leads to inconsistent Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) results, making it difficult to compare and implement effective DfC strategies across different cases. Additionally, the lack of a widely accepted methodology and intellectual property (IPR) issues between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers hinder the interchangeability of technologies and knowledge.
ZEvRA brings together five major OEMs, leading European universities, key industry players, and three members of the 2ZERO partnership to demonstrate a unified circularity methodology. This collaborative effort aims to standardize and streamline the production processes, ensuring that technologies and methodologies are interchangeable and replicable across Europe.
ZEvRA will be supported by advanced digital tools and validated through the creation of a fully circular car, integrating eight prototype components that represent 84% of the total automotive material mix. This project uses the Škoda Enyaq as a baseline to develop and test new technologies.
ZEvRA’s groundbreaking innovations are set to enhance zero-emission practices in the EV lifecycle and value chain. By 2035, the project aims to positively impact the lifecycle of at least 59% of European EVs. Through harmonized methodologies and collaborative efforts, ZEvRA is poised to lead the automotive industry towards a more sustainable and efficient future.
Objectives
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9-Rs-based Design for Circularity methodology
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Validation with 8 zero-emission use cases
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Circular car aiming at 0% virgin material
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Increase of human capital, awareness & acceptability
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Adaptation of circular car models
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Outcomes
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Harmonised way of measuring circularity
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Increasing circularity, circular design approaches: Reuse, recycling & CRM recovery
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Circular car prototype test bench ready
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Increased skills, awareness & acceptability
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Improved markets of secondary raw materials
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Impacts
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Clean road transport challenge
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World leadership
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Innovative demonstration
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Use acceptability, improved air quality, more circular economy
Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Angewandten Forschung EV
Dr. Thomas Hipke
Head of Business Unit Lightweight Construction, Textile Technologies and Circular Economy
Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU
Chemnitz, Germany
e-mail: zevra@iwu.fraunhofer.de
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101138034
Coordinator
Politecnico di Milano
POLIMI
prof. Gianmarco Griffini
Associate Professor, Materials Science and Technology
e-mail: gianmarco.griffini@polimi.it
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101058756.
About the project (Duration 06/2022 - 05/2026)
The Horizon Europe project RECREATE – REcycling technologies for Circular REuse and remanufacturing of fiber-reinforced composite mATErials- focused on developing innovative technologies and strategies to improve the reuse, repair, and recycling of complex composite materials, including carbon fibre reinforced composites (CFRC) and glass fibre reinforced composites (GFRC).
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Composite materials are increasingly used in sectors such as automotive, aerospace, wind energy, transportation, and consumer goods due to their lightweight and high-performance properties. At the same time, growing volumes of end-of-life composite waste represent an important environmental and economic challenge. RECREATE addressed this challenge by developing circular solutions that help keep valuable materials and components in use for longer and reduce reliance on virgin raw materials.
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During the project, RECREATE developed and demonstrated several innovative technologies at relevant industrial scale, including advanced sorting and inspection systems, dismantling and repair technologies, reusable and reversible composite solutions, and new physico-chemical recycling and upcycling approaches. These solutions aimed to recover high-quality fibres and materials while avoiding downcycling and supporting more sustainable manufacturing processes.
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The project also explored digital tools to support environmental and economic assessment, circularity evaluation, and knowledge transfer. In addition, RECREATE contributed to education and skills development through the creation of digital learning resources, including MOOCs, serious games, and digital twins
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Key project outcomes include:
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Recycled organic fractions for industrial coatings​
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Circular reuse and remanufacturing of glass fiber-reinforced composites for boards in transportation sector​
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Reuse of end-of-life carbon fiber reinforced composites in modular structures for mobility
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​INDAR deboning-on-demand primer for composite materials
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Educational game „Nova Polis“ and MOOC „Fiber-Reinforced Composite Materials for the Circular Economy: Challenges and Opportunities“​​
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Through its activities and demonstrators, RECREATE addressed major European composite application sectors, including transportation, wind energy, aviation, and consumer goods, highlighting the strong replication potential of the developed solutions across Europe and beyond.
APRA Europe supported the communication and dissemination activities and contriubted to the development of the project's MOOC and the integrated environmental and socio-economic sustainability assessment..
A comprehensive RECREATE Results Catalogue presenting the project’s technologies, demonstrators, and outcomes can now be ordered via the RECREATE website.
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About the project (Duration 2017-2021)
Large scale demonstration of new circular economy value-chains based on the reuse of end-of-life fiber reinforced composites.
Glass and carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites (GFRP and CFRP) are increasingly used as structural materials in many manufacturing sectors like transport, constructions and energy due to their better lightweight and corrosion resistance compared to metals. Composite recycling is a challenging task. Although mechanical grinding and pyrolysis reached a quite high TRL, landfilling of EoL composites is still widespread since no significant added value in the reuse and remanufacturing of composites is demonstrated.
In the FiberEUse project, various innovation paths were bundled to improve the recycling of composites and make it profitable. The recycled material is to be reutilised in the form of new products in value chains.
FiberEUse was divided into three use cases, each focusing on mechanical and thermal recycling as well as the reprocessing and reuse of EoL composite components. The approaches related to seven industries (automotive, aerospace, sports, construction, sanitary, wind power and creative products) and both carbon and glass fibre reinforced materials.
Cross-industry reutilisation chains were also established in the project. For example, thermally recycled carbon fibres from the aviation industry were used in structural components in the automotive industry or mechanically recycled materials from EoL wind rotor blades were used as the core in a ski. In addition to the technical aspects of recycling technologies, the logistics of EoL materials were also analysed in order to take a holistic approach. New value chains and business scenarios were developed for the new products made from recycled materials. The technical processes of the project were supported by an IT platform that is intended to support the development of products made from recycled materials in the future. In this IT platform, general design rules for products made from recycled materials were linked to materials, their properties and production processes.
Objectives
(i) The integration of innovative remanufacturing technologies addressed to develop profitable reuse options for mechanically or thermally recycled EoL GFRP and CFRP composites, enabling ease of operation, significant cost reduction, compliance with EU Directives with minimization of environmental impacts. New value chains will be created leading to the realization of several demo-cases covering different manufacturing sectors. They will be subjected to a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA, ISO 14044/44) and to the EU Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) programme.
(ii) The development of an innovation strategy for mobilization and networking of stakeholders from all the sectors related to composites, from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to tier 1 suppliers, logistical operators, technology providers and exploiters, designers, and end-user associations, providing a platform for communication and dissemination of results. This will help to overcome cross-cutting barriers to innovation by i) developing a common roadmap for the alignment of regional legislations, regulation and pricing methodologies and ii) demonstrating the economic benefits and profitability of the proposed remanufacturing options. This also will promote a paradigm shift in perception from simple “recycling” to “valorisation through reuse and remanufacturing”.
Use cases
FiberEUse will demonstrate at a large scale a set of environmentally and simultaneously economically profitable solutions for the treatment and valorization of EoL composite waste deriving from different manufacturing sectors. A holistic approach based on the synergistic use of different enabling technologies will be implemented in the realization of three large scale use-cases. Each of these large use-cases will generate several other demo-cases to close the loop of composite lifecycle in different industrial sectors from a circular economy viewpoint. Interconnections among the various use-cases are also foreseen to further widen the extent of circularization of the composite sector.
The project is based on the realization of three macro use-cases, further detailed in eight demonstrators:
Use-case 1 (yellow in image below): Mechanical recycling of short GFRP and re-use in added-value customized applications, including furniture, sport and creative products. Emerging manufacturing technologies like UV-assisted 3D-printing and metallization by Physical Vapor Deposition will be used.
Use-case 2 (green in image below): Thermal recycling of long fibers (glass and carbon) and re-use in high-tech, high-resistance applications. The input product will be EoL wind turbine and aerospace components. The re-use of composites in automotive (aesthetical and structural components) and building will be demonstrated by applying controlled pyrolysis and custom remanufacturing.
Use-case 3 (blue in image below): Inspection, repair and remanufacturing for EoL CFRP products in high-tech applications. Adaptive design and manufacturing criteria will be implemented to allow for a complete circular economy demonstration in the automotive sector.
Through new cloud-based ICT solutions for value-chain integration, scouting of new markets, analysis of legislation barriers, life cycle assessment for different reverse logistic options, FiberEUse will support industry in the transition to a circular economy model for composites.
Politecnico di Milano
POLIMI
prof. Marcello Colledani
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Technology and Production Systems Lab
e-mail: marcello.colledani@polimi.it
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. H2020-730323-1.
Following the completion of the EU project FiberEUse, the open access book ‘Systemic Circular Economy Solutions for Fiber-Reinforced Composites’ has been published, which presents the solutions developed in the project for the circular management of fibre-plastic composites.