Dow, Gruppo Fiori develop recycling pathway for automotive polyurethane foam

Dow, in partnership with Italian firm Gruppo Fiori, has announced advancements in a jointly developed, novel process that enables the recovery of polyurethane scrap from end-of-life vehicles without disassembly.

Dow notes that polyurethane foam is an essential part of automotive interiors, with a typical vehicle containing about 28 kilograms of the material—of which 10-15 kilograms are found in the seats. However, Midland, Michigan-based Dow says traditional recycling of vehicles requires disassembly of automotive components and can create cost and complexity for recyclers.

Dow says its development with Gruppo Fiori eliminates this step, producing a simplified recovery for the polyurethane stream with the purity needed to enable chemical recycling. The partners say this innovation drives toward a circular automotive supply chain by:

• obtaining a polyurethane stream suitable for chemical recycling from end-of-life vehicles without disassembly;
• keeping valuable polyurethane foam out of landfills and reintegrating it into productive use;
• enabling industrial-scale recycling and reuse of polyurethane in mobility applications; facilitating the creation of polyol with recycled content; and
• helping enable compliance with upcoming mandatory recycled content requirements from Europe’s End of Life Vehicle Regulation, as well as the sustainability goals of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)

“Collaboration is essential to building a closed-loop supply chain for the automotive industry,” says Dr. Esther Quintanilla, global MobilityScience marketing director at Dow Polyurethanes. “By partnering with Gruppo Fiori, we aim to help OEMs and component manufacturers meet their sustainability goals and regulatory requirements for recycled content without sacrificing the performance benefits of polyurethanes.”

The program with Gruppo Fiori can enable Dow’s Renuva portfolio of recycled materials, Dow says, adding that the portfolio exists to accelerate the transformation of scrap streams into new raw materials through mechanical and chemical recycling.

“Advancing circular ecosystems means bringing every member of the automotive value chain to the design table to solve recyclability challenges,” says Mauro Grotto, president of Italmetalli, a Gruppo Fiori company. “By augmenting our expertise in recovering and sorting materials from end-of-life vehicles with Dow’s depolymerization capabilities, we can restore the value of waste and share that value with the industry.”

The development builds on the 2024 memorandum of understanding between Dow and Gruppo Fiori to create a new ecosystem for recycling end-of-life vehicle parts and materials. The companies’ partnership analyzed dismantling processes, assessed the purity and recyclability of recovered materials and the companies say they are piloting business models through an accelerated “test-and-learn” approach.