149129 20251017144549.0 doi 10.1111/jiec.12737 sideral 107150 ART-2018-107150 eng Ortego Bielsa, Abel (orcid)0000-0002-6148-1253 Vehicles and critical raw materials. A sustainability assessment using thermodynamic rarity 2018 The changing material composition of cars represents a challenge for future recycling of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs). Particularly, as current recycling targets are based solely on mass, critical metals increasingly used in cars might be lost during recycling processes, due to their small mass compared to bulk metals such as Fe and Al. We investigate a complementary indicator to material value in passenger vehicles based on exergy. The indicator is called thermodynamic rarity and represents the exergy cost (GJ) needed for producing a given material from bare rock to the market. According to our results, the thermodynamic rarity of critical metals used in cars, in most cases, supersedes that of the bulk metals that are the current focus of ELV recycling. While Fe, Al, and Cu account for more than 90% of the car's metal content, they only represent 60% of the total rarity of a car. In contrast, while Mo, Co, Nb, and Ni account for less than 1% of the car's metal content, their contribution to the car's rarity is larger than 7%. Rarity increases with the electrification level due to the greater amount of critical metals used; specifically, due to an increased use of (1) Al alloys are mainly used in the car's body-in-white of electric cars for light-weighting purposes, (2) Cu in car electronics, and (3) Co, Li, Ni, and rare earth metals (La, Nd, and Pr) in Li-ion and NiMH batteries. info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/691287/EU/Guiding European Policy toward a low-carbon economy. Modelling Energy system Development under Environmental And Socioeconomic constraints/MEDEAS This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No H2020 691287-MEDEAS info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess All rights reserved http://www.europeana.eu/rights/rr-f/ 4.826 2018 ENGINEERING, ENVIRONMENTAL 11 / 52 = 0.212 2018 Q1 T1 GREEN & SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 8 / 35 = 0.229 2018 Q1 T1 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES 38 / 250 = 0.152 2018 Q1 T1 1.486 2018 Economics and Econometrics 2018 Q1 Social Sciences (miscellaneous) 2018 Q1 Environmental Science (miscellaneous) 2018 Q1 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion Valero, Alicia Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0003-3330-1793 Valero, Antonio Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0003-0702-733X Restrepo, Eliette 5004 590 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Ingeniería Mecánica Área Máquinas y Motores Térmi. 22, 5 (2018), 1005-1015 JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY 1088-1980 410065 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/149129/files/texto_completo.pdf Postprint 2017335 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/149129/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Postprint oai:zaguan.unizar.es:149129 articulos driver 2025-10-17-14:11:12 ARTICLE