REPAINT - Paintability of recycled plastic

The initiative to the project came from Volvo Cars, Volvo Trucks and Traton, who see the need  to collaborate and generate new knowledge and solutions that can enable use of recycled post-consumer-recycled plastics in high‑performance automotive components, including painted parts with high demands on appearence. The REPAINT project is coordinated by RISE, which also is R&D performer. RISE’s expertise and the Testbeds for Plastics Recycling, Pre‑treatment and Painting are important resources in the project. The project’s partners are key actors in the value chain with broad competence. All partners contribute in the project with knowledge and practical work. 

The project consortium has chosen to focus on the plastics most commonly used in automotive, plastics that often are painted. These include polypropylene‑based plastics, with and without fillers, as well as blends of PC/ABS (polycarbonate/acrylonitrile‑butadiene‑styrene). Recycled plastics, primarily post-consumer-recycled plastics from various sources, will be tested in the project. The aim is to optimise the properties of the plastic blends with regard to paintability; however, other properties such as mechanical performance, dimensional stability, processability and durability are also of importance and will be investigated in order to meet the automotive industry's requirements for materials and components.

The project collaboration with key industry partnes has great potential to contribute to the transition required in the automotive sector to sustainable and circular plastic use, and to help meet forthcoming regulatory requirements from the EU Commission.