Industrial material categorization – novel, useful and comprehensive

Things in our environment are made from materials. The earth and nature are producing and supplying primary products being used as raw materials for the various purposes. Men are using them as coal, ore, stone, wood, fiber, etc. to make industrial products. Formed products are assembled to become end user products like buildings, vehicles, machines, etc. 

For every entity it is inevitable to know exactly the sources, behavior and usage opportunities of the included materials. This is the reason for material sciences to become of increasing importance in industrial societies.  Industry is forced to know about the usage of materials along their life cycle: from production, their formation to goods, and ending as industrial or household scrap. 

Materials are composed of substances: chemical elements and chemical compounds. Some of them may be released from the material and possibly interact with the user or the environment. This behavior is well known for many materials, but by far not for all of them and not for all usages and combinations. National and international law and governmental regulations are forcing industry to know about their products’ impact onto users and the environment. It is therefore self-evident that a systematic material classification was needed. Centuries ago in Germany the Automobile Producers’ Association [1] had developed a Material Classification [2] which later became the selection list for the – recycling related – material determination within the IMDS [3]. This worldwide network became the leading tracking system for automotive components, materials and their substances. One driver for the assessment of materials being used to construct automobiles was the increasing pressure forcing industry to practice the collection and the recycling of materials out of end-of-life vehicles. In the European Union the ELV-Directive [4] tackled the issue to re-use or re-cycle the increasing streams of materials arising from the millions of tons of industry products at the end of their lives. 

The international norm: ISO 22628 [5] is describing methods to calculate the recyclability and recoverability of road vehicles. This standard also strives to classify the materials in a road vehicle into the following types: Metal, Polymer, Elastomer, Glass, Fluid, Miscellaneous. It is obvious that this rough classification cannot satisfy the needs of a thorough explanation of the material contents in a  vehicle. 

A modern material categorization for industrial purposes must meet the following demands: 

Easy to comprehend – even laymen should be able to determine a material’s category All existing materials should be covered with few main categories Category naming according to the materials’ origins. Categories describing material usages should be avoided as far as possible References to existing norms should be used

With these wants the following categorization was developed.

1    Metal

1A    Iron and Steel (ISO 683-1, EN 10027)

1B    Light Metal and –Alloys (D [6] < 4.5 g/cm³)

1C    Heavy Metal (D > 4.5 g/cm³)

1D    Noble Metal

 

2    Polymer

2A    Thermoplastic (ISO 1043)

2B    Elastomer (ISO 1629)

2C    Thermoplastic Elastomer

2D    Duromer (ISO 1043)

2E    Textile Fiber (ISO 2076)

 

3    Mineral

3A    Glass

3B    Ceramic

3C    Stone

 

4    Functional

4A    Inorganic, solid

4B    Organic, solid

4C    Pyrotechnic

4D    Composite

 

5    Bio-Material

5A    Animal Fiber, Hair (ISO 6938)

5B    Plant Fiber (ISO 6938)

5C    Wood, Paper, Cardboard

5D    Leather

5E    Biopolymer

 

6    Operating Supply

6A    Fuel

6B    Lubricant

6C    Hydraulic Fluid

6D    Solution, aqueous

6E    Refrigerant

6F    Acid, Base, Salt

6G    Gas

 

As manufacturing industry is widely interlaced, a material class that has been identified at the start of the supply chain should be valid throughout this chain. While this material categorization was developed with regard to automotive industry it indeed has the potential to be used as well by other industry branches, especially when it comes to the IMDS material datasheet [7] reporting.

 

[1] VDA – Verband der Automobilindustrie

[2] VDA 231-106

[3] IMDS – International Material Data System http://mdsystem.com/

[4] End of Life Vehicles Directive (2000/53/EC)

[5] Road vehicles – Recyclability and recoverability – Calculation method

[6] D stands for density (g/cm³)

[7] IMDS Material Data Sheets (MDS) are the electronic reporting forms being used by automotive industry

Tagged as: categorization, Comprehensive, Industrial, Material, novel, Useful