Injection Moulding Asia Automotive
Going green in the car sector Biobased materials, which currently are being produced from various feedstocks such as castor beans, corn, sugar beets, sugarcane, sweet potatoes, husks, to cite a few, are found viable, yet still enmeshed with challenges for various applications, especially for car parts.
Challenge of going green recent news item about a squirrel found nibbling on biobased parts of a parked Toyota Aygo car in the UK may strike as peculiarly funny, yet it is reminiscent of the concerns surrounding biobased materials: how can these materials compete with food production? Some experts believe that market demand for biobased materials in car parts, which is forecast by Transparency Market Research to achieve US$7.8 billion value by 2018 (in various applications), can have pros and cons. Reducing the carbon footprint combined with increased fuel efficiency and consumer demands for lighter, more aerodynamic parts have undoubtedly spurred the trend for automotive makers to go green. However, it is putting pressure on manufacturers to switch to biobased materials. The US Department of Energy says that by a mere 10% reduction of weight in a vehicle can improve fuel economy by 6%-8%. By 2050, the US Department of Energy assumes a target vehicle weight reduction of 50%. This target, however, can only be achieved if availability and cost affordability of the lightweight materials are assured. Biobased car parts have been around since the early 1940s when Henry Ford’s Michigan-headquartered Ford Motor Company started using what it called agricultural plastic, based partly on soybean and hemp. Development of these material types was meant to boost the agriculture sector at the time; make cars lighter and also to conserve metals (which would have been scarce during the war era). There may be limiting factors for biobased materials for cars. According to the Biobased Automobile Parts Investigation report released in 2012 for the USDA Office of Energy Policy and New Uses, at the time of the study, constraints included the cost to manufacture the part. While cost is a main factor, other considerations (to determining the best material for manufacturing vehicle parts) also counted. These include part performance, owing to sound insulation of improved performance characteristics offered by biobased materials.
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Ford, which pioneered soy plastics in the ‘40s, introduced the soy foam car seat in 2007
Part weight is also a factor because biobased materials may require heavier parts due to lower material strength. Durability is also taken into consideration since biobased materials may affect durability depending on the biodegradability nature of the material and safety, which may require that biobased materials undergo substantial testing to ensure that safety standards can be met. Then again, the question of biobased materials competing with food supply for human consumption cannot be swept under the carpet. Thomas Wodke, of the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology, says that every acre of land used for renewable resources could also be utilised for food, hence there would be, what he terms as, area and utilisation competition. He also cautioned about the aspect of environmental pollution to “acidification of bodies of water and over-fertilisation of soils”. Making nanocellulose work tarting last year, the American Process Inc (API) and researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Clark Atlanta University, Swinburne University of Technology, and the USDA’s Forest Products Laboratory have collaborated on developing ultra-strong, lightweight automotive structural components reinforced with nanocellulose, which are extracted from wood fibres. The team wanted to produce a material that is as durable as steel for car parts, yet more economical than the expensive carbon fibre composites. API’s proprietary manufacturing technology makes nanocellulose, which has strengths equivalent to Kevlar and costs like conventional polymers. The company says that it will begin commercial sales of nanocellulose by end of first quarter 2015, when it starts up its Georgia demonstration plant.
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