INEOS Styrolution introduces new carbon look composite StyLight® Aesthetic S C245-1
04/05/18
Frankfurt, Germany
- Innovation for automotive, electronics and sports & leisure
- Higher area weight results in improved fibre alignment
- New fibres improve stiffness and rigidity
As a new addition to its family of thermoplastic composites, INEOS Styrolution introduces the new carbon look composite StyLight Aesthetic S C245-1. The new material shows significant improvements over the previous StyLight Aesthetic S C200-1 providing application designers in the automotive and other industries with new opportunities.
The new StyLight Aesthetic S C245-1 provides a higher fibre density resulting in a higher area weight and ultimately in a better fibre alignment. This improvement will further enhance the surface aesthetics of the material, which has been developed to address lightweight aesthetic designs. The previous StyLight Aesthetic S C200-1 delivered a very good surface quality at an area weight of 200 g/cm2 at a thickness per layer of 0.25mm. The new StyLight Aesthetic S C245-1 goes beyond this de-facto industry standard offering an area weight of 245 g/cm2 at a thickness per layer of 0.3mm.
The new fibres used in StyLight Aesthetic S C245-1 improve the mechanical properties of the material. In particular, stiffness and rigidity are significantly enhanced compared to the previous StyLight Aesthetic S C200-1.
With these new characteristics, StyLight Aesthetic S C245-1 offers a surface quality that addresses the needs of the most demanding applications. Tests have shown that the new material meets respective technical tests of leading automotive brands and it can be expected that the new StyLight will be selected for a series of new automotive interior and exterior applications for cars of the next generation. Typical applications include interior decorative trims, seat components, rear-view mirror caps, and exterior trims.
The new material is also explored in the electronics industry and for sports and leisure applications. It becomes an attractive alternative when the search is on for a material offering a cool and sporty look. In the electronics industry, typical applications include mobile phone casings, loudspeaker cones and drones. For sports and leisure, examples include sport helmets, bicycle parts and luggage.
Pierre Juan, VP Future Business and Innovation at INEOS Styrolution, is optimistic about the success of the new material: “We are working very closely on dozens of projects with our customers in various industries. Their feedback is very encouraging and we received initial certifications of the material for selected applications. We also took a closer look at various processing technologies to support our customers optimising industrial production of their solutions.”