SusChem publishes Polymer Composites Brochure

SusChem has just published a new brochure on ‘Polymer composites for automotive sustainability’. The brochure is the result of a collaborative effort involving stakeholders all along the automotive value chain in Europe. Automotive composites are a growing market that is driven by efficiency and emissions issues. The market for global automotive composite materials is forecast to reach €3.72 billion by 2017. This represents a real opportunity for the European chemical and composites industry. 

The automotive industry faces a new challenge aligning material properties, product design and production or assembly processes - especially in larger volume production series vehicles – but could take more advantage of the potential of composites for light-weighting vehicles. The demand for weight reduction is driven by the demand for better fuel efficiency and reduced emissions to comply with EU legislation. In 2007 over 500 million tons of CO2 emissions were estimated to be due to cars in the EU; it is estimated that savings due to composites light-weighting result in a potential 1.4% improvement here.

SusChem’s role
From its inception in 2004, SusChem identified advanced materials as an enabling technology critical to achieving its vision and mission. SusChem has set innovation priorities for advanced materials to be adopted in key end user markets including automotive and highlighted 'Multifunctional light-weight construction' as a priority for smart, green and integrated transport in its Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda (SIRA).

The SusChem Working Group on Composites Materials for Automotive pulled together experts from the chemical industry, the automotive industry, the automotive parts suppliers as well as academia and recommended the publication of the brochure as well as a wider consultation with the established competence centres in Europe.

In October 2013 SusChem and the automotive R&D association EARPA organised a joint workshop, “Exploring cross-innovation opportunities on automotive composites and bio-based materials” in Frankfurt. The outcomes of this workshop, as well as feedback collected by a stakeholder consultation held as a follow-up exercise, are summarised in several key conclusions and recommendations within the polymer brochure.

Key objectives
The brochure integrates specific input from key stakeholders across the value chain, including those involved in production equipment, and provides concrete recommendations to enable faster progress in advanced composites light-weighting innovation uptake in the European automotive industry.

A set of specific R&D&I challenges are defined for advanced composite materials including:

• Novel and innovative polymer composite raw materials with enhanced recyclability properties
• Low cost adaptive, flexible and efficient manufacturing and assembly processes specific to the high-volume automotive industry
• Multi-attribute design optimisation that works even in case of a multi-material architecture
• Automated joining techniques for multi-materials and composites
• Invisible damage identification and repair techniques for composite parts

A key wider-scale objective is the establishment of an EU-wide programme to ensure adequate support for automotive composites research and innovation in the long term.

As well as this coordinated R&D&I programme, the establishment of a European Automotive Composites Competence Network is proposed. This network of R&D&I clusters can improve the coordination between local knowledge hubs.

For further information on SusChem activities in this area contact Jacques Komornicki at Cefic.

R4R Fuel Cell Conference in Szczecin

A conference on 'Fuel cells – energy and transportation – design, prototyping, implementation' is to be held in Szczecin, Poland on 22 April 2015. The event is supported by the SusChem inspired FP7 project Chemical Regions for Resource Efficiency (R4R) and will bring together all the important actors along the hydrogen and fuel cell value chain in Europe.


The conference will cover all aspects of the hydrogen and fuel cell value chain. Opening presentations will describe the development of hydrogen powered public transport in Szczecin and give an overview of the progress in fuel cells, before looking at the value chain in detail during the main morning session. After lunch the focus moves onto technical solutions.

The agenda for the conference can be downloaded here.

Currently over 60 attendees from six different countries will be joining the event. To book your place contact the conference organisers with your contact details (name, organization, email). The deadline for registration is 15 April 2015.

About R4R
Launched in late 2012, R4R is funded for three years under the European Commission’s FP7 Research and Innovation Framework Programme. The ‘Chemical Regions for Resource Efficiency (R4R)’ project aims to overcome fragmentation of European ambitious and innovative regions. Through its methodology, R4R could lead the path to a range of promising and positive impacts on resource efficiency.

R4R brings together six complementary EU Regions (Aragon in Spain, Göteborg in Sweden, North Rhine–Westphalia in Germany, the Port of Rotterdam and the South-West regions in the Netherlands, and West Pomerania in Poland), each with their own public and private research and innovation expertise. The R4R project aims to achieve a major step improvement in regional and transnational cooperation among its participating regions and will develop practices, tools and examples which can be easily disseminated to and adopted by multiple European regions to improve regional and cross-regional collaboration in general, and in the process industry on resource efficiency in particular.

R4R will create a platform for international collaboration on resource efficiency with clusters in third countries to improve and accelerate innovation and promote European eco-innovative technologies globally. To find out more visit the R4R website.