Chanda ranga: Car Parts Prices

Saturday 4 August 2012

Car Parts Prices

Correction: The ICIS Chemical Business story headlined "Use of bio-based auto parts is increasing" has been corrected in the 13th paragraph to note that EcoPaXX is an engineering plastic, not a resin as originally identified. A corrected story follows.
DEVELOPMENT OF plant-based chemicals in automotive applications has been steadily growing and most of the products are coming from traditional chemical companies.

Natural fiber-reinforced plastics, vegetable oil-based and polyamides, bio-based polyesters and thermoplastic elastomers are just some of the bio-based materials already being incorporated in several vehicles.
Soybean-based foam, made from soybean polyols, combined with petroleum-based isocyanate, is already being used in the seat cushions and backs of 2010 Ford and Lincoln car models, says Deborah Mielewski, polymer technical leader at US-based

Ford notes that more than 2m vehicles in its fleet already use the bio-based foam, which reduces petroleum oil use by a total of 1.5m lb (680 tonnes). It plans to convert 100% of its fleet to using the biofoam in the future.
"The soy foam technology has migrated within Ford Motor incredibly fast. In addition, we have soy-based foam in the headliner of the 2010 Escape model," says Mielewski. "All of Ford's seating suppliers currently offer a soy-based polyurethane [PU] foam product."