CONCORD, Ont.—Flax, hemp, rice and soy aren’t just ingredients on the menu for an Olympic athlete. They’re also what his car will be made of in the future.
Some automakers are already using this so-called biocontent in their vehicles, and Canadian biocomposite developers are helping them to achieve their green car goals.
Sylvain Labonté is team leader of Advanced Polymer Composites, Automotive and Surface Transportation, at the National Research Council Canada (NRC) in Ottawa. He works with the Concord, Ont.-based Exteriors and Interiors unit of automotive supplier Magna International on a joint project called the Magna-NRC Composites Centre of Excellence (MNCCE) to develop biocomposite technology for the automotive industry.
Conventional thermoplastic materials such as polypropylene and Poly Vinyl Chloride—commonly known as PVC—and others derived from petrochemical processes are being successfully replaced with bio-based polymers made out of biocontent such as flax and hemp biofibres, Labonté says.
Potential uses include: interior car parts such as instrument panels and trim; exterior body parts such as hardtops, sunroof components, door panels, hoods, running boards, bumpers and tailgates; and structural parts such as bumper frames, seat frames and floors.
Toyota is a big believer in such bio-based plastics, which it already uses in scuff plates, headliners, seat cushions, sun visors, pillar covers, trunk liners and door trims.
CO2 emissions from the production of these plastic components are reduced by as much as 20 per cent compared with conventional plastic manufacturing, she says.
She says Toyota plans to replace 20 per cent of the conventional plastics in its vehicles with bioplastics by 2015.
“Another percentage will be based on synthetic polymers but reinforced with materials from biomass such as wood fibres,” says the MNCCE’s Labonté.
Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions (AI Bio) in Edmonton has been working on a project to integrate wood fibre into auto parts with Magna Exteriors and Interiors and its partner, the Centre for Research and Innovation in the Bio-Economy (CRIBE), also based in Concord, Ont. It has entered the second stage of its research, to be completed by the end of the year.
Blade says wood is ideal for use in car parts because it is lighter than traditional petroleum-based materials, which helps automakers cut greenhouse gas emissions and meet Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.
Wood fibre is also more sustainable than petroleum-based fibre, says Blade.
Ford has been a pioneer in bio-based car parts since Henry Ford used soybean and hemp in the body of his 1941 vehicle, known as both the Soybean car and the Hemp body car. Today, Ford uses parts made out of soy, rice and wood in many of its vehicles, says Dr. Ellen Lee, Ford’s technical expert in materials engineering, based in Dearborn, Mich.
Ford also plans to use the biofibre for the entire centre console, which would would mean an additional weight savings of 3.6 kg.
Lee says she hopes to replace all of the plastic and polymeric materials — about 10 per cent or 136 kg — in Ford vehicles with biofibres by 2015.
Helping to make that possible is the BioComposites Group (BCG) of Drayton Valley, Alta. Formed in 2013, BCG is a commercial spin-off company of Tekle Technical Services (TTS Inc.), which has been involved in the research and development of bio-based products such as engineered fibre mats, biocomposite panels, structural insulated panels, fibre cement and fibre plastic since 1998.
“They’re bio-degradable, as strong and lighter, so fuel economy is better,” Dan Madlung, CEO of BCG, says of the wood, flax and hemp biofibres the company is using to replace traditional materials such as glass fibre and polyester in carpeting, dashboards, door panels, headliners, package trays, seatbacks and other interior automotive parts.
BCG recently partnered with Techstyles, a Bingham Farms, Mich.-based company specializing in automotive interiors, to help bring its products to automakers.
While the future of biocomposites seems promising, there are still some roadblocks.
Consumers also have to be convinced that biofibres are just as good as traditional materials, says Labonté.
But are we taking food out of the mouths of our aspiring athletes by using flax, hemp, rice and soy in the manufacture of bio-based car parts? According to Labonté, the athletes can rest easy.