Mitsubishi Chemical: Honda’s New Electric Vehicle N-ONE e Adopts Its Chemically Recycled PMMA

Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation recently announced a collaboration with Honda Motor Co., Ltd. to develop recycled PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) for the door sunshade of the new micro electric vehicle N-ONE e, set to launch on September 12, 2025. This marks the first time recycled acrylic resin has been used for door sunshades in the automotive industry.

ONE e: Car door sunshade made from recycled acrylic resin

Acrylic resin can be thermally decomposed and converted back into its raw material, MMA (methyl methacrylate), making it highly suitable for chemical recycling. Since 2021, Mitsubishi Chemical has been jointly researching microwave-based thermal decomposition recycling technology with Microwave Chemical Corporation, and officially established [the entity] on September 12, 2025.

As early as the end of 2023, Mitsubishi Chemical announced that it was jointly developing a PMMA compound with Honda Motor for use in automotive body parts such as doors, engine hoods, and front fenders. Mitsubishi Chemical plans to begin operating a recycling plant in 2025 to commercialize its PMMA recycling business. A closed-loop recycling trial, conducted in collaboration with Honda and Microwave Chemical, has already produced recycled products with quality comparable to conventional products. Mitsubishi Chemical expects that, through this technology, greenhouse gas emissions over the entire product life cycle can be reduced by approximately 50% compared to current practices.

MMA and Acrylonitrile Production Capacity Distribution Map and Future Planning

Source: Mitsubishi Chemical

However, acrylic resin recovered from scrapped automobiles has long been difficult to recycle into products due to its unstable quality and unsuitability for reuse. To address this issue, Mitsubishi Chemical, in collaboration with Honda and a Hokkaido automobile dismantling company, has begun conducting demonstration experiments on the practical recycling and utilization of acrylic resin. Working together, Mitsubishi Chemical and these companies have successfully developed a recycling technology that prevents foreign substances from mixing into the recovered acrylic resin and ensures that its quality is comparable to that of virgin acrylic resin.