Page 51 - Plastics News April 2020

LANXESS collaborates to develop first all- Coperion delivers innovative closed-loop
plastic brake pedal for car solution

operion GmbH is implementing a closed-loop
C concept for the production of flexible multi-layer
film. Recycling multi-layer film has long posed a
challenge, but now, Coperion has developed a closed-
ANXESS has collaborated with BOGE Elastmetall to loop approach solution in which up to 100 per cent of
Ldevelop first all-plastic brake pedal for battery- multi-layer film production waste can be re-processed
electric sports car. The joint development from and fed back into the production process. As a
LANXESS and BOGE Elastmetall has created around a 50 concrete project, Coperion will deliver a recycling
percent lighter than comparable steel design for an all- system, including bulk material handling, high-
accuracy feeding from Coperion K-Tron, and the heart
plastic brake pedal to be used in a battery-electric
sports cars. Its structure comprises an insert made of the system, a ZSK Mc18 twin screw extruder. Within
from Tepex dynalite, a continuous-fibre-reinforced the ZSK Mc18 twin screw extruder, shredded
thermoplastic composite from LANXESS, and several production waste is processed such that it can be
tapes. “The composite structure makes the brake added back into the multi-layer film production
process — at consistently high end product quality.
pedal 50 percent lighter than a comparable steel
design. The structural component meets the Multi-layer film waste as a result of the production
demanding load requirements thanks to the tailor- process is shredded before being fed into the ZSK
made fibre-layer construction of the Tepex insert and extruder via pneumatic conveying and highly accurate
additional local tape reinforcement. Extensive feeding from Coperion K-Tron. There, the material is
automation allows the geometrically complex safety- homogenised and devolatilised with very high
critical component to be manufactured efficiently and intensity in the co-rotating ZSK Mc18 twin screw
in a way that is suitable for large-scale production,” extruder. Within the extruder, dispersion and
explains Dr. Klaus Vonberg, an expert in lightweight devolatilisation performance are crucial to end
design at HPM's Tepex Automotive Group. The fully product quality – with gentle product handling and
consolidated semi-finished products Tepex dynalite very good mixing behavior, even at very high
have a thermoplastic matrix that is typically reinforced throughput rates, thus achieving consistently high
with layers of continuous glass-fibre fabric. The brake product quality. Following homogenisation in the ZSK
extruder, in the closed-loop concept, the recycled
pedal for the battery-electric sports car uses a
composite structure with a polyamide 6 matrix, which material is added back into the multi-layer film
contains unidirectional fibre layers inside and fabric production process; with no quality loss and the
layers with fibres arranged at 45° angles on the two proportion of added recyclate is very high. Multi-layer
covering layers. The inner layers are what give the film manufacturing thus takes place sustainably,
highly efficiently, and resource-friendly with the aid of
component its excellent tensile and bending strength.
Multiple tapes with glass-fibre rovings are used in the advanced technologies. Peter von Hoffmann, General
brake pedal to reinforce the bottomside of the Manager of Business Unit Engineering Plastics and
component. Since the tapes and the Tepex insert Special Applications at Coperion, said: “Sustainability
consist of mutually compatible.The covering layers of is becoming more and more important, and the topic
the insert with their 45° fibre layers, combined with of the circular economy is moving further into the
the tapes on top, thereby ensure the high torsional foreground for companies – and that is much more so
strength of the pedal. for multi-layer film producers.”

APRIL 2020 48 Plastics News