Press Release
Plastics recycling in automotive manufacturing: ZF wins MATERIALICA Award
- From end-of-life component to new stabilizer link: Project team successfully tests the use of polyamide 6 recovered from end-of-life ZF transmission oil pans
- Near-series testing on existing ZF production equipment confirms the technical processability of the recycled material
- In the project, ZF is responsible for material selection, component design, manufacturing trials and near-series validation
Friedrichshafen/Munich. Together with BASF and Mercedes-Benz, ZF has demonstrated how polyamide 6 from end-of-life transmission oil pans can be turned into a new, technically demanding chassis component. The result is a stabilizer link – a connecting component for the chassis stabilizer – made of high-quality polyamide 6 whose polymer content consists of 100 percent recycled material. ZF has now received the 2026 MATERIALICA Award in the category
“CO₂-Efficiency” for the research conducted as part of the project.
“In this project, we demonstrated that a circular economy is possible in automotive manufacturing – without compromising on quality or performance. The award recognizes that achievement,” says Dr. Michael Lohrmann, Director Materials Technology at ZF.
The starting point used ZF transmission oil pans, which until now have been treated as contaminated waste. These are components from vehicles that have reached the end of their service life and are no longer used in regular operation – known as end-of-life vehicle components (EoL). BASF depolymerized the parts, breaking them down into their original building blocks, purified them and processed them into a high-quality plastic material. The appropriate material system and the demonstrator component were selected at the ZF Plastics Technology Center in Dielingen in cooperation with Materials Technology, a unit of ZF’s central Research and Development organization in Friedrichshafen. Comparative manufacturing trials were also conducted there, testing the recycled material against BASF’s standard material using test specimens.
Near-series testing of the material in the stabilizer link – a component for customer Mercedes-Benz – confirmed the technical feasibility and high quality of the recycled material: “Together with our project partners, we have thus tested a tangible closed-loop material cycle from an end-of-life ZF part to a new ZF chassis component,” says Lohrmann.
Strong partnerships as a key success factor
The award-winning project is the result of close collaboration between ZF, BASF and Mercedes-Benz. Together, the partners have for the first time developed real automotive components made from recycled PA6 and successfully validated them on a pilot scale. ZF was responsible for selecting the material system and demonstrator component, as well as for the manufacturing trials and near-series testing. BASF handled the depolymerization and processing of the polyamide. The stabilizer link was investigated for use at Mercedes-Benz. The project demonstrates how innovative recycling technologies and cross-industry partnerships can advance the circular economy for engineering plastics.
