BioConcept Car Coated with Biogenic Materials

These days, it isn’t just about gasoline-electric hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells, or flexible-fuel vehicles. Overall environmental load is also being explored, although admittedly this continues to get far less attention, and research dollars, than fuels and powertrains. Yet these explorations continue and society has benefited as a result. Cars are better designed for disassembly so more of a vehicle can be recycled and less ends up in landfills. Different types of plastics are coded for easy identification and recycling. Better and more environmentally positive materials are being used in vehicles of all types with greater frequency.

Volvo has long been at the forefront of this movement with its early Environmental Priorities System and the programs that have evolved from this. As Volvo has shown, there’s a lot to be gained from taking total environmental load into account from the very beginning when a vehicle is being designed. This allows designers and engineers to consider various types of plastics that can be used for a given part, for instance, and then select the one that offers the best balance of performance, cost, and environmental compatibility. The same holds true for cloth and other materials used in a vehicle’s interior or, for that matter, a vehicle’s trim, wiring, fender liners, motor, and many other parts in a car.

Sustainable materials use is also on the rise. Nearly 180,000 tons of natural fibers are already being used for passenger cars and commercial vehicles each year, an average of about nine pounds per vehicle. This is expected to increase in the future. While automakers have taken the lead in this area, there has also been substantial pressure on the auto industry’s major suppliers to innovate their way to better environmental performance. Many have risen to the challenge in recent years with better use of renewable raw materials in the components they provide to auto manufacturers.

One of the latest notable efforts was recently presented at the Hanover Trade Fair in Germany by BASF Coatings AG, a company that produces and markets a diverse range of automotive finishes, coatings, and paints along with the processes to apply them. Here, BASF Coatings and its R-M paint brand introduced the BioConcept Car project, which strives to forward the concept of using biogenic materials in automobiles. As is often the case with advanced technologies, these materials are being used in vehicles on the race track to prove their function in this high-profile environment first.

According to R-M, which is a partner on the BioConcept Car project, coating biogenic materials is not a regular activity at the company. However, the BioConcept Car project works well to prove the potential for coating wide-ranging materials with sustainable and environmentally friendly coating technology. In this case, bumpers, hoods, hatches, doors, and fenders are made of biofibers impregnated with a liquid bioplastic. A Volkswagen Beetle concept is the project’s first-generation effort, while a Ford Mustang with coated bio-components represents a second-generation example.

“While the paintwork we apply needs to resist the toughest demands posed by the racing scene, including racetracks that can be extremely dirty, it also has to meet the expectations of the media and make a positive impact on the public,” says Thorsten Schlatmann, head of R-M Distribution Germany. “Nothing less than ‘spectacular’ will do.”

Schlatmann points out that an added challenge was precisely matching the colors on sponsors’ advertising decals, something that was well-met by the BASF Coatings labs and research departments. The team used R-M’s Onyx HD line of waterborne paints for the job. This paint meets strict environmental requirements with 80 percent fewer solvents and about 90 percent less waste than solvent-based paint systems. R-M’s Starlux CP, a VOC (volatile organic compound) compliant clearcoat, was also used to show that highly solvent-reduced products can also withstand the extreme environment of car racing.

“Complete components made of biogenic materials, whether glass fibers, carbon fibers, or biofibers, are used in OEM production only for special applications and in car racing,” says Schlatmann, “and are thus produced in small batches.” Obviously, this does not present a case for replacing steel in mass-production automobiles at this time. Still, he shares that his company is preparing for the future and the move toward more sustainable products, and in fact they have no choice but to do so. This same realization is occurring to other auto industry suppliers in growing numbers as petroleum-free biofuels and bio-based components loom large as a growing part of the auto industry, and our future.