Kumho Petrochemical, Hyundai Motor win top industrial prize for breakthrough in recycled plastics

Kumho Petrochemical said Wednesday that it had won the IR52 Jang Young-sil Award, alongside Hyundai Motor, for developing a recycled acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) material suitable for use in mass-produced vehicle interiors.

The award, one of Korea’s leading industrial technology honors, is given to companies for notable advances in research and development. The recycled plastic, once limited by inconsistent quality, has been re-engineered into a material strong enough for automotive manufacturing.

The advance turns a plastic that has long been constrained by inconsistent quality into a material that meets the demands of automotive manufacturing, earning one of the country’s most prominent industrial technology honors.

Kumho Petrochemical said it has now won the prize six times since 1996, representing its first win in the energy and environment sector.

The joint research team upgraded recycled ABS, sourced from discarded appliances such as televisions and refrigerators, into a heat-resistant material and applied it to vehicle production for the first time in Korea.

Recycled ABS has long faced limitations due to degradation, contamination and inconsistent material properties, restricting its use in industries requiring strict quality standards.

To overcome those challenges, the company said it applied a styrene acrylonitrile-based design and precision blending techniques, evaluating more than 50 recycled material types and refining supplier quality through data analysis.

The resulting material contains more than 20 percent recycled content and reduces carbon emissions by about 16 percent, while meeting automotive standards for odor, heat resistance, impact strength and surface quality, the company said.

Kumho Petrochemical said the achievement demonstrates that recycled materials can move beyond simple substitutes to become structural materials meeting performance benchmarks, with potential for broader use across vehicle models and components.

This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.