EconCore’s thermoplastic, honeycomb technology is now being introduced into two of the world’s largest automotive manufacturers by non-woven specialists, Fynotej.
The Mexican company have secured two major contracts to supply 180,000m2 annually of trunk load floors using Fynocore. One contract is for a completely new, not-yet-launched project and the other is for a current, already-in-production platform.
Fynocore is the brand name for Fynotej’s continuous honeycomb panel technology, licensed from EconCore in Belgium. It provides many advantages over existing, conventional solutions. The product is extremely lightweight yet offers incredible strength and as an overall process delivers value for money against conventional solutions. Its lightweight properties can contribute to greater fuel savings and a reduction in CO2. The product is typically made from 30% recycled content too, making it a more sustainable and environmentally friendly product.
Tomasz Czarnecki, COO at EconCore said “The ability to continuously “extrude” honeycomb sandwich panels cost effectively, combined with the perspective to choose out of many material choices for both, core and the skins, provides great optimisation potential and opens up countless applications that the technology is being used for.”
In this automotive application, the honeycomb core panel is made from polypropylene, which is lighter and better performing than the conventional, more expensive solutions. Fynotej also use a proprietary inline lamination process that can laminate panels with non-woven automotive carpets by thermofusion without using adhesives. This can result in further savings to customers.
Fynotej’s Fabiola Carbajal, sales manager said: “We’re excited about the range of applications the honeycomb technology can be used for, with its excellent lightweight and strength characteristics. It is extremely versatile as it can be tuned to fit customer’s requirements while, for the applications requiring it, the thermoplastic honeycomb panels can also be effectively compression moulded to more complex geometries.
“We’re keen to engage with automotive OEMs and tier one suppliers, ideally in the design stage, where our products can be specified from the outset. We know vehicle manufacturers, as they transition to electric and hybrid cars, see light-weighting as a critical area for development, to increase the range of these vehicles. Our products fit very well with this thinking, as well as being commercially competitive too.”
Fynotej believe they have a superior, cost efficient product that outperforms conventional solutions. At the same time the technology fits ideally into the market trends with regards to sustainability, offering an easily recyclable lightweight product based on minimal amount of thermoplastic material, where this thermoplastic material creating the honeycomb panel is often already recycled.
Czarnecki concluded: “What Fynotej are doing with the technology today, not just in the automotive sector, but also in packaging and construction, is a perfect demonstration of the sheer versatility of the technology. We’ll continue to support Fynotej as a licensee, by pushing the technology developments further and exchanging the know-how.”
This story uses material from Econcore, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
