Envalior and Secara collaborate to deliver circular PA6 for automotive applications

Envalior has announced a Memorandum of Understanding with Secara to collaborate on pathways for incorporating high-quality post-consumer-recycled content into technical material grades. The work is based on Secara's catalytic depolymerization process and is directed at applications where recycled content must meet demanding performance requirements. The companies will test and validate options for circular PA6, with particular relevance for automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers preparing for the European Commission’s End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation. The initial focus is PCR-derived caprolactam for PA6, using a process intended to generate drop-in quality monomers that can be fed into existing polymerization processes without changes to equipment, product design or qualification procedures.

"Circularity is one of the defining shifts facing the automotive industry, and it can only be solved through strong partnerships across the value chain. With Secara, we want to explore early what a scalable, high-performance circular pathway could look like and ensure Envalior is ready to support our customers as the ELV requirements take place," says Christophe Cazabeau, EVP Performance Materials at Envalior.

Support for compliance with ELV requirements

The results of the collaboration are expected to be relevant to automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers seeking scalable material solutions to ensure compliance with the European Commission’s recently adopted End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation. The regulation is expected to come into force later this year. It requires that at least 15% of the plastic used in new vehicles must come from recycled-based sources six years after entry into force, rising to 25% after 10 years.

In addition, 20% of this recycled content must come from closed-loop sources, meaning material recovered from end-of-life vehicles or from parts removed during a vehicle’s use phase.

"Due to technical/quality constraints, mechanical recycling alone is insufficient to meet the ELVR closed-loop requirements in demanding applications," explains Artur Völk, Circular and Low-Carbon Solutions Lead at Envalior. "SECARA’s chemical recycling solution therefore offers a promising way forward to effectively balance advanced performance properties and regulatory compliance."

From end-of-life vehicle plastics to virgin-quality raw material

Secara's depolymerization process has been designed to break down technical polymers into their component molecules. According to the company, the route is intended to address obstacles that have limited the recyclability of plastics from end-of-life vehicles, especially mixed industrial waste streams.

"Our recycling process is designed to handle the large industrial mixed-waste streams containing material inclusions such as glass fibers, flame-retardants and other additives or contaminations. We selectively break up the target polymers in those waste streams and transform them into drop-in quality monomers", says Fabian Nagel, CEO at SECARA. "By addressing the challenge of mixed waste streams, our recovery route can deliver a scalable platform that we believe can be a cost-competitive solution for upcoming circularity requirements as well as a core pillar of the resilient and sustainable technical polymer industry of the future."

The initial work, already underway for a year, focuses on caprolactam derived from post-consumer recycled material for PA6. From the outset, development has aimed to balance cost efficiency with caprolactam purity in order to achieve performance comparable with virgin PA6. Secara's process is intended to produce drop-in quality monomers suitable for direct use in existing polymerization processes, supporting wider adoption of circular PA6 in automotive applications while contributing to supply-chain decarbonization.

Transition to circular automotive materials

Envalior states that the MoU with Secara is aligned with its Envalior CARES sustainability strategy and is intended both to address the impacts of its own operations and to support customers in their sustainability programs. The companies aim to identify an efficient route to ready-to-implement material solutions that can support ELVR compliance without compromising performance.

Both partners intend to maximize the drop-in potential of this feedstock stream across the automotive PA6 portfolio. Visitors to the upcoming Fakuma 2026 trade show in Friedrichshafen, Germany, can learn more about the collaboration at the Envalior stand, Hall B4, 4302.