Composites innovation is rapidly growing in the Asian market

Plastics are playing an important role in the development and application of innovative composite materials in Asia, including the development of more energy-efficient cars and trains and the promotion of eco-friendly products. This seems to be the case for the winners of a composite innovation prestigious at least in Asia.

From the JEC Innovation Award issued on the same day of the Asian Composites Exhibition in Singapore on June 26th, we can see some innovative trends in Asia. The organizer of the show stated that Asia is currently the fastest growing composite material market. By 2015, Asia’s composite materials demand is expected to account for more than 50% of global demand.

The JEC Group, headquartered in Paris, France, is the world's largest composite materials industry organization. The group said that the JEC Innovation Awards reflect that Asian-Pacific companies are paying more attention to R&D projects based on local renewable resources, new energy and renewable energy.

JEC President and CEO OFrederique Mutel said: “Asia-Pacific countries have established a significant composite R&D capability.” The Asian Composites Exhibition will be held on June 26-28.

JEC also awarded the Malaysian former Prime Minister Mahathirbin Mohamed the Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contribution to the development of the composite materials industry in Malaysia.

Mahathir was named the Asian News of the Year by Time magazine in 1998. At this year's JEC awards ceremony, he said that composite materials are "materials of the future" because of its potential to reduce weight in automobiles, airplanes, and other transportation systems, helping to save energy and reduce emissions and help combat global warming.

Many winners of this year's Innovation Awards use “weight loss” as their theme.

For example, the University of Tokyo has won a low-cost method for mass-producing carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic prepregs for automotive parts applications.

The technology uses polypropylene or polyamide as a matrix resin to produce parts that can reduce body weight by 40-70%. JEC said in a press release that this CFR component is currently being used by prototype Japanese car manufacturers for prototype design and is in trial production.

This project was completed in cooperation with some major Japanese companies, including Toray Industries, Ltd., Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd., Toyobo Co., Ltd. and Takagi Seiko Co., Ltd.

Researchers said that the technology can be used to mass produce "ultra-light car" parts, and the material itself can be recycled.

JEC predicts that by 2030, 10 million cars will use at least 220 pounds of such carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastics each year.

The award-winning projects for Malaysian and Korean companies are applying plastic composite materials in trains.

Among them, DKCompositesSdn in Melaka, Malaysia. Bhd. The company has developed materials based on PET foam and acrylic resin that can reduce the weight of important light rail train compartment parts by half.

According to DK, this type of material is now used for the ceilings, seats, ferry doors, and fronts of monorail train systems in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Mumbai, India, replacing traditional aluminum and steel parts and existing composite parts. .

The company said that glass fiber reinforced plastic parts contain great market opportunities.