5 Takeaways from Chinaplas 2024

Below are 5 key takeaways from Chinaplas.

EV lightweighting solutions: Automotive OEMs are increasingly pressured to lighten their vehicles, driven by new regulations and the ever-growing emphasis on safety and sustainability. During Chinaplas, we showcased cross car beams made of Akulon®/Durethan®. These innovative parts offer many benefits, including reduced carbon footprint, decreased weight, precise tolerances, and a multitude of integrated functions—all without compromising performance. 

Also showcased at the booth was Akulon®/Durethan® air spring mounts. With the increasing demand for air springs OEMs are looking for cost reduction and production efficiencies, so a shift towards replacing metal with plastics is evident. Envalior's portfolio, featuring PA6, PA66, and TPC, offers the ideal materials to facilitate cost and weight reduction while promoting eco-friendly solutions for air springs.

A greener future: Trends in automobile powertrain electrification brings new applications to the market, such as high voltage battery packs, e-motors, invertors, converts and on-board chargers. At the booth we showcased HV connectors designed to ensure robust connections for vehicle systems in all working conditions. With Akulon SG-KGS5/HV & SG-KGS6/HV we enable a balanced performance in terms of outdoor F1 requirements, flaming retardancy, electrical performance, easy processing, mechanical creep performance and insurance of sealing to IP67. With those features integrated into the Akulon SG series, EV high voltage connections become safer and better. 

High-efficiency sports shoes: One of the non-automotive components we featured at the booth were sports shoes made of the specialty product Arnitel®, which optimizes performance and durability of midsoles. Arnitel® is a thermoplastic copolyester material. We have a unique product portfolio for various foaming technologies, which offer the possibility to achieve best in class rebounds and comfort in combination with longer life vs PEBA. Furthermore, we offer low carbon footprint solutions to bring down the environmental footprint of shoes. Numerous midsoles made with Arnitel® are in production right now and will hit the market in 2024 and 2025. 

Sustainable Solutions: With increasing green and low-carbon initiatives, there are heightened demands from governments, investors, and consumers alike to reduce carbon footprints and enhance operational sustainability in the chemical industry. Simultaneously, driven by industries such as the electric vehicle sector, the transformation of manufacturing, the rapid development of technology, and the sustained growth in the demand for high-performance and special engineering materials continues.

We now have a portfolio of around 150 bio-based and/or recycled-based grades with best-in-class materials, for instance, Durethan ECO (PA6/PA66 with post-industrial recycled glass fibres) Pocan ECO (PBT with post-industrial recycled glass fibres) and Pocan ECO T (PBT/PET Blend with post-industrial recycled glass fibres and additionally post-consumer recycled PET). Or take our bio-based Stanyl: A bio-based high-temperature polyamide which halves the footprint by 50%. 

We are also known for Akulon RePurposed. It is made from abandoned recycled fishing nets and reduces carbon footprint even up to 82%. It is not only used in Samsung’s Galaxy S22 series and  Schneider Electric’s Merten Ocean plastics range, but also was the world’s first ocean plastic used by Ford in the Ford Bronco. Together with Ford, we received the SPE award for this innovation.

Plus, the Jiangyin site in China is powered by 100% renewable energy, partly from sourced energy and partly from solar energy generated directly on-site.