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Biocom­pos­ites – Provid­ing Bene­fits to Industry, Con­sumers and Environment

25.07.2017
Biocom­pos­ites is an umbrella term for com­pos­ites made com­pletely, or to a sig­ni­fic­ant degree, from bio­mass: Nat­ur­al and wood fibres are com­bined with pet­ro­chem­ic­al or bio-based poly­mers to achieve very good mech­an­ic­al and often even light-weight prop­er­ties. The most com­monly used types of biocom­pos­ites are Wood-Plastic Com­pos­ites (WPC) and Nat­ur­al Fibre Com­pos­ites (NFC).

Exist­ing mar­kets and new opportunities

In the past, Wood-Plastic Com­pos­ites (WPC) were mainly pro­cessed via extru­sion tech­no­lo­gies (deck­ing) and Nat­ur­al Fibre Com­pos­ites (NFC) mainly in press mould­ing (auto­mot­ive). For many years, research insti­tutes and indus­tri­al labs have con­tinu­ously developed WPC and NFC applic­a­tions, using the mater­i­als in small series of con­sumer goods. Rel­ev­ant volumes were only deployed in the deck­ing mar­ket, which is still the biggest sec­tor in the biocom­pos­ites mar­ket. How­ever, quite recently biocom­pos­ites have star­ted to enter sev­er­al addi­tion­al mar­kets. With the latest advances in injec­tion mould­ing and 3D print­ing, both WPC and NFC are of high interest for a mul­ti­tude of applic­a­tions and fruit­ful new syn­er­gies are being cre­ated for new products. More and more com­pan­ies spe­cific­ally use wood and nat­ur­al fibre plastic gran­u­lates in con­sumer goods such as instru­ments, elec­tron­ic cas­ings, fur­niture, tables, toys, combs or trays as well as 3D prin­ted goods – the unique look and haptics con­vey high qual­ity and value and are well received by cus­tom­ers. There are many oppor­tun­it­ies for these niche mater­i­als to achieve large-scale pro­duc­tion soon.

Bene­fits of biocom­pos­ite materials

Con­sumer products made of WPC or NFC have a dif­fer­ent look than pure plastic products; they become notice­able, have a nice touch and reduce the use of plastic due to the wood and nat­ur­al fibres or are even avail­able com­pletely without any oil-based mater­i­als – which improves the envir­on­ment­al foot­print. Many of the cur­rent mater­i­als offer also spe­cial prop­er­ties pro­du­cers are look­ing for, like acous­tic per­form­ance, light-weight or anti­bac­teri­al prop­er­ties. But the most import­ant part: the products appeal to con­sumers and gain pub­lic recog­ni­tion.

Mar­ket growth

Signs for mar­ket growth can be found in vari­ous mar­kets: In the fur­niture mar­ket, IKEA re-intro­duced the wood-plastic com­pos­ites chair PS 2012 to its pro­gramme and offers addi­tion­al new products with wood-plastic com­pos­ites like pic­ture frames. Con­sumer elec­tron­ics offer good examples for use­ful products as well – a product group in which acous­tic per­form­ance is an essen­tial key to the suc­cess. In this area mar­ket lead­er LG has star­ted to use the cel­lu­lose-based gran­u­late Aqva­comp as a biocom­pos­ite mater­i­al in man­u­fac­tur­ing of loud­speak­ers.

The biocom­pos­ites industry meets in Cologne

The wide range of suc­cess­ful new tech­no­lo­gies and applic­a­tions of biocom­pos­ites in con­sumer goods, auto­mot­ive indus­tries and con­struc­tion will be presen­ted at the Biocom­pos­ites Con­fer­ence Cologne, 6 – 7 Decem­ber 2017 in Cologne, Ger­many. It rep­res­ents the wide spec­trum of innov­at­ive applic­a­tions and mater­i­al choices of WPC and NFC: 
  • Biocom­pos­ites in the auto­mot­ive industry
  • Injec­tion mould­ing: gran­u­lates and applications
  • Biocom­pos­ites in 3D printing
  • Struc­tur­al applications
  • Wood and nat­ur­al fibres and oth­er raw mater­i­als for biocomposites
  • Bio-based ther­mosets for biocomposites
The pre­lim­in­ary pro­gramme fea­tur­ing 17 speak­ers is now online at www​.biocom​pos​itescc​.com/​p​r​o​g​ramme. As in pre­vi­ous years, one ses­sion will be ded­ic­ated to the Innov­a­tion Award ​“Biocom­pos­ite of the Year 2017”. It will be gran­ted at the Biocom­pos­ites Con­fer­ence Cologne to the young, innov­at­ive bio-based mater­i­als industry for find­ing suit­able applic­a­tions and mar­kets for biocom­pos­ite products. The focus of the award is on new devel­op­ments with­in these areas, which have been launched in 2017 or will be launched in 2018. Pro­du­cers and invent­ors of innov­at­ive, new applic­a­tions for WPC and NFC are invited to hand in their applic­a­tions until end of August: www​.biocom​pos​itescc​.com/​award. More inform­a­tion about:
  • Con­fer­ence: www​.biocom​pos​itescc​.com
  • Exhib­i­tion: www​.biocom​pos​itescc​.com/​e​x​h​i​b​i​t​o​rinfo
  • Con­fer­ence pro­gramme: www​.biocom​pos​itescc​.com/​p​r​o​g​ramme
  • Con­tact: Asta Partan­en, asta.​partanen@​nova-​institut.​de

About nova-Insti­tut

nova-Insti­tute is a private and inde­pend­ent insti­tute, foun­ded in 1994; nova offers research and con­sultancy with a focus on bio-based and CO2-based eco­nomy in the fields of feed­stock, techno-eco­nom­ic eval­u­ation, mar­kets, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, dis­sem­in­a­tion, B2B com­mu­nic­a­tion and policy. Today, nova-Insti­tute has 25 employ­ees and an annu­al turnover of more than 2.5 mil­lion €. Source: nova-Insti­tut GmbH
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