bioplasticsMAGAZINE_0905

Fiber Applications
Plant-Based Materials
for Automobile Interiors
Toray Industries, Inc. with headquarters in Chuo-ku, Tokyo,
Japan has started full-fledged mass production of
its environment-friendly fiber materials based on PLA
and plant-derived polyesters for automobile applications.
Toray has already been supplying the materials for the trunk
and floor carpeting to Toyota Motor Corp. in its latest hybrid
model of Lexus, the HS 250h, launched in July this year. At
the same time, Toray is promoting the products to other automakers.
Toray aims to have annual sales of 200 tons for the
first year for products including ceiling upholstery and door
trim materials, and expects them to grow to 5,000 tons per
year by 2015.
Materials to be used in different automobile interior parts
have to clear tough and varied physical property requirements.
Generally, environment-friendly materials such as PLA used
to be believed to lack in heat and wear resistance properties
in comparison to regular polyester. Though various efforts
were being made to address those weaknesses, the adoption
of such materials in automobile applications had so far been
limited to a few models due to a number of shortcomings.
This time Toray developed various technologies for
compounding environment-friendly materials with
petroleum-based products, including a proprietary hydrolysis
control technology to modify polymer and techniques for
compounding using polymer alloys and in the process of
fiber spinning as well as mixed fiber compounding during
higher processing. By making full use of these technologies,
Toray succeeded in achieving the significantly high levels of
durability sought by automobile interior applications, enabling
actual adoption by mass-produced vehicles.
Having cleared the tough physical property benchmarks
for automobile interiors, Toray will focus on further
development of materials with higher plant-derived biomass
percentage and expand the materials’ applications into wideranging
applications such as general apparel and industrial
materials.
In this age of growing importance for environmentconsciousness,
automobile manufacturers are striving to
develop advanced technologies and aiming for a motorized
society that can co-exist with the environment. The companies
are actively considering a shift from the existing petroleumbased
materials to products made from plant-derived
materials for interior components which make up about 5
to 10% of a vehicle’s body weight. The use of plant-derived
materials is expected to explode in the future, given the fact
that it has low CO 2 emissions in its lifecycle from production
to disposal and it helps in curbing the use of the limited fossil
fuel resources.
Under its Innovation by Chemistry slogan, Toray is actively
pursuing the development of environment-friendly products
and aims to contribute to the development of a sustainable,
recycling-oriented society through its sales of environmentfriendly
automobile parts.
www.toray.com
Photos: Lexus / Toyota
bioplastics MAGAZINE [05/09] Vol. 4 13