Student team TU/ecomotive hopes to inspire car manufacturers with Phoenix as new legislation from Brussels approaches

Phoenix is the latest and highly sustainable electric car from TU Eindhoven students. Through clever assembly and the use of mono-material structures (structures consisting of a single type of material), as much as 75 per cent of the vehicle can be reused in the next generation of cars. For existing cars in Europe, the so-called closed-loop recycling rate is a lot lower; at just 21 per cent.

Closed-loop recycling

Closed-loop recycling means that a material can be reused endlessly without significant loss of quality or certain properties. This is different from downcycling; the reuse process currently common in the automotive industry that involves turning recycled materials into products of lower quality or with reduced functionality. This usually happens because the recycled materials are mixed with other materials, so they cannot be reused in their pure form.

Auto Recycling Netherlands

Sector organisation Auto Recycling Nederland (ARN) reports that although 88 per cent of car materials are reused, due to loss of quality in downcycling, the bulk of the materials end up outside the car. These materials are then incorporated into products such as pens and clothing. As more than six million vehicles are scrapped in Europe every year - leading to millions of tonnes of waste - improving the recycling process across the board could help curb serious environmental problems and preserve large amounts of valuable materials.

Circular economy

With Phoenix, student team TU/ecomotive aims to achieve the highest possible closed-loop recycling rate, where materials can be recovered and reused in their original state in new products of the same nature. With Phoenix's clever design, the students have succeeded and are setting a new standard for a circular economy and better recycling within the sector, preserving valuable materials.

For more info on the relationship with Circular Economy and on the choice of batteries, see the complete text in TU/e news


Source: TU/e news
Photo: Sarp Guerel (from Cursor)

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