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About EcoPlast Project

Empowering Circular Operations Across the Automotive Plastics Value Chain

The EcoPlast project aims to develop advanced digital solutions that promote circularity in the automotive plastic value chain. Its primary goal is to improve the quality, safety, and durability of secondary materials while increasing their use in new products. The project focuses on significantly enhancing recovery, recycling, and upcycling rates and encouraging the adoption of secondary materials in high-value applications.

To support these goals, a secure digital platform will be created which will include tools such as an ecoDesign assistant for circular product development, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool for measuring sustainability, a Circularity Index (CI) Calculator, and Digital Twins (DTs) for optimising recycling and production processes. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics will support End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) operations, and a blockchain-enabled Digital Product Passport (DPP) will ensure full traceability of plastic components, build trust among stakeholders, and enable 100% sorting efficiency. The platform will also feature a circular marketplace for trading recycled and upcycled automotive plastic products, encouraging reuse, repair, refurbishment, and remanufacturing.

The applicability of the EcoPlast Project will be demonstrated by 9 significant Use Cases (UCs).

Work Packages

WP 1

Requirement Analysis and Specification

WP 1

Requirement Analysis and Specification

Leader:Technovative Solutions Limited (TVS)

Work Package Objectives:

To identify the current standards /guidelines for traceability and recycled content for plastic value chain along with their limitations
To prepare a baseline data to identify the requirements for seamless Use Case (UC) demonstrations
To define the Digital Product Passport (DPP) attributes and collect data for 100 numbers of DPP creation
To formalise the project KPIs and specification

WP 2

Materials and Process Characterisation and Modelling

WP 2

Materials and Process Characterisation and Modelling

Leader:SIMULARGE BILISIM VE MUHENDISLIK TEKNOLOJILERI ANONIM SIRKETI (SIM)

Work Package Objectives:

To develop predictive modelling to identify mechanical, physical, chemical, and aesthetic properties plastic materials made of virgin polymer, recycled polymer, bio-filler, biofibre, glass fibre etc.
To develop digital twins (DTs) with predictive capabilities enabling to optimise and adapt the extrusion and injection moulding (IM) process against the variation

WP 3

Design for Circularity & Advanced Recycling/Upcycling of Automotive Plastic

WP 3

Design for Circularity & Advanced Recycling/Upcycling of Automotive Plastic

Leader:Sabancı University

Work Package Objectives:

To update the design of automotive plastic part to use bio-based fillers/fibres
To develop advance sorting technology enabling to classify almost all kinds of plastics including the black plastic
To update the design of automotive acoustic component to replace non-environment friendly thermoset multi-material (EPDM + PU) by recyclable thermoset PES; the objective is also to facilitate ease of disassembly and reassembly, creating the options for reusability through repair and remanufacturing
To optimise solvent based purification (SBP) process to recover PP and long glass fibre in pure form from the ELV GFRP part while using greener solvent
To optimise depolymerisation process based on enzymatic and chemical process to recover monomer from ELV plastic part.

WP 4

Digital Technology Platform to Promote CE in Automotive Plastic Value Chain

WP 4

Digital Technology Platform to Promote CE in Automotive Plastic Value Chain

Leader:DigiProd Pass Ltd.

Work Package Objectives:

To develop tool to calculate circularity index (CI) and recycled content (of plastic material and part) using harmonised methodology
To develop sustainability assessment frameworks enabling to evaluate the economic, environmental and social impact of plastic material and part
Develop block chain enabled digital product passport (DPP) framework
Develop digital marketplace for automotive while ensuring transparency, traceability and trust among the automotive plastic value chain actors
Develop AI-based tool to forecast market demand around ELV plastic management
Develop the integrated EcoPlast digital technology platform through integrating the above tools and adding more features to support knowledge sharing and producing editable business model templates.

WP 5

Industrial Demonstration

WP 5

Industrial Demonstration

Leader:Ford Otomotiv Sanayi A.S. (FO)

Work Package Objectives:

To demonstrate the groundbreaking sorting efficiency
To demonstrate the increased recycling rate while ensuring quality
To demonstrate the increased upcycling rate
To demonstrate the increased uptake of secondary & renewable material
To demonstrate the implementation of the ‘circular by design’ principles in automotive acoustic components
To demonstrate the increased use of bio-composite with recycled content
To demonstrate the effectiveness of the digital platform in ensuring the transparency, traceability and trust among the value chain actors regarding plastic materials and part produced by using recycled and renewable materials

WP 6

Impact Assessment, Training, Awareness Campaign

WP 6

Impact Assessment, Training, Awareness Campaign

Leader:Technovative Solutions Limited (TVS)

Work Package Objectives:

To demonstrate the environmental, social and economic impact of the secondary material, automotive part with increased recycled content, plastic recycling/upcycling processes demonstrated in the project
To produce a Whitepaper on the automotive plastics sustainability and circularity
To assess the impact of EcoPlast in cross sectoral plastic value chain
To conduct knowledge and skill development campaigns
To conduct social awareness campaign across the EU
To formulate recommendations for the influential/regulatory bodies to develop standards and best practice guideline for the traceability & CE implantation in the automotive plastic value chain.

WP 7

Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation

WP 7

Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation

Leader:Brunel University London

Work Package Objectives:

To frame diversified exploitation plan
To formalise IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) strategy and file patents
To formalise dissemination & communication plan and strategy
To participate in dissemination activities

WP 8

Project Management

WP 8

Project Management

Leader:Technovative Solutions Limited (TVS)

Work Package Objectives:

To ensure legal, contractual, ethical, financial, and administrative management of the project, the grant and consortium
To coordinate knowledge management, deliverables, milestone reports and cost statements
To organise consortium meetings and ensure consortium management
To coordinate payments and distribution of funding
To liaise between the EC and the consortium
To develop Data Management Plan (DMP)

Our Consortium

Technovative Solutions Ltd. (SME-Tech provider- Coordinator) is a leading company to develop AI, DPP solutions and LCA tools. TVS has over 100 employees in two offices. TVS has won 27 European projects. In 6 projects TVS is developing DPP solutions for various industrial domains including EU light house project BASE for developing battery passport. In 5 EU projects, TVS is developing AI based solutions. TVS has deep expertise in blockchain technologies, AI, platform development, cloud computing, marketplace development, and scalable tools development. TVS will coordinate the EcoPlast project and will lead WP1, WP6 and WP8. TVS will develop EcoPlast platform including AI tools and marketplace for the use case demonstrations (WP5). TVS has worked previously with FO, CRF, BUL, AG and IU. TVS has coordinated two large UK national funded projects with international partners named IMPHORAA and PowerPath and has necessary experience and capacity to coordinate EcoPlast.

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Ford Otosan, with a workforce of over 20,000, Ford Otosan operates across multiple facilities, as well as an R&D center in Istanbul, making it the largest R&D organization in the Turkish automotive sector. The company has a robust production capacity, manufacturing 721,700 vehicles, 436,500 engines, and 140,000 powertrains annually as of 2024. Within the context of the ECOPLAST project, FO will take on the role of spearheading the development of UC-1 and UC-2 which are focused on an automotive industry pilot and electric energy storage production pilot.

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CRF is the research centre of STELLANTIS (FIAT) group. The expertise is related to automotive components and in particular, it is involved the “Composites” team. FIAT is interested to evaluate the sustainability of automotive car parts through the use of the platform. They will support UC4 by providing end-of-life components, and knowledge.

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SDL is an SME that has been operating for the past seven years and has developed ultra-low-footprint vehicle technology for personal mobility. SDL is coming up with a novel type of personalised, safe, fast and clean ultra-low footprint vehicle suitable for the daily commute of two persons. This can be considered as the future urban vehicle for daily commuting. We will evaluate how the EcoPlast technologies can be used for these types of vehicles along with traditional vehicles. SDL will be participating in WP1, WP6 (Task 6.2) and WP7.

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Assan Hanil large Automotive, is a Tier 1 supplier of automotive parts. AH also has worked in product development with recycle and bio-filler features and has great know-how in terms of the integration of such materials into automotive. AH will take part in the prototype production, product optimisation and digitalisation studies with plastic injection for the Defroster Channel and Passenger Substrate to be developed in the project UC1 and UC2.

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Adler Group is an automotive Tier1 supplier with more than 15,000 employees, 100 production plants and 20 R&D centres worldwide. AG will develop, produce & validate the UC4 and will cooperate with partners for requirement analysis and specifications, development of digital platform, plastic recycling and upcycling technologies, sustainability and circularity analysis for automotive use case. They will lead UC4 for design and demonstrating acoustic panel.

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Eurotec is a compounder which produces engineering plastics for many sectors, including automotive, electrical & electronics, white good etc. EMP produces prime, recycled and biobased thermoplastic material solutions. In EcoPlast project, EMP will support partners in developing sustainable compounding material solutions for Defroster Channel, Passenger Substrate and Backside corner bumper. They will contribute in UC1, UC2, UC3, UC5 and UC6.

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PROPLAST is a technology centre focused on research and innovation in the polymer and composite sector, recognized as a European Cluster and as materials innovation cluster in Piedmont region, whose mission is to foster enterprises’ competitiveness by supporting their technological progress and promoting industrial crossfertilization.In EcoPlast project PROPLAST will participate in UC4 for developing innovative chemical recycling processing solutions and materials to be applied in the industrial sectors.

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Beker Recycle is Turkish Integrated Waste Management and Automotive Recycling company. In the project BR will be involved in UC 7 to develop innovative sorting technology.

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Pollini Group is an Italian ELV processing company working for more than 40 years, taking in three generations with a total area of about 80,000 square metres. In the project PG will be involved in UC4.

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Sabanci University Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Research and Application centre, SU-IMC has made significant strides from basic research to commercialisation in advanced plastics recycling, specifically through a proprietary, in-house developed SBP technology that uses a bio-based and renewable solvent. In EcoPlast project, SUIMC will purify waste PP using SBP method, enabling the recovery and reuse of glass fibres and the removal of paint to achieve ultra-high purity PP that can replace virgin grade PP. SU will lead WP3 and contribute to UC1, UC2 and UC9.

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Brunel Composites Centre (BCC) is an innovation centre under Brunel University London. BUL will be collaborating on the redesign of mono-material green components for the project. Their focus will be on developing new designs for acoustic components using Polyester (PES), which are environmentally friendly and recyclable in UC4. BUL will also lead WP7 for dissemination and exploitation and will also contribute to UC4.

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Cardiff University is Britain’s one of the leading teaching and research university. The university has an established track record in research into sustainable processes, from catalysis to plastics. In EcoPlast CU will identify chemical recycling methods to create a circular economy of plastic components in the automotive sector (UC8).

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Istanbul University is one of the oldest universities in Turkey. In this project IU will be focusing on the integration of social sciences and humanities, impact assessment, and social awareness (WP6).

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Simularge A.Ş. is an SME specialising in engineering simulation software & DT technologies. In EcoPlast, SL will develop DT for extrusion and IM processes. SL will lead WP2 and contribute to UC1, UC2, UC3, UC5 & UC6.

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Kordsa, global player of tire and construction reinforcement & composites markets, operates in 11 facilities throughout 7 countries with over 4500 employees. In this project KSA will be involved in WP3 for UC1, UC2 and UC9 and will scale up SBP technology to TRL 7.

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DigiProdPass Limited is a spin off company of TVS to commercialise DPP solution in different market verticals. DPPL is working on commercial piloting of DPP with different battery, automotive, furniture & textile companies. DPPL is leading WP4 and providing DPP platform for the UCs (WP5).

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Project Coordinator

Dr. Tamanna Khan

Technovative Solutions Limited

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About EcoPlast Project

Empowering Circular Operations Across the Automotive Plastics Value Chain

Work Packages

Our Consortium

Project Coordinator

Dr. Tamanna Khan

Empowering Circular Operations Across the Automotive Plastics Value Chain