GERMANY – At the International Composites Congress in Stuttgart, BASF and Sonae Arauco were jointly honored with the AVK (German Federation of Reinforced Plastics) Innovation Award 2017 for a new development in 3D moldable wood fiber components.

The two companies ranked first in the category “Innovative products / components or applications” for providing the furniture industry with a storage stable composite that can be processed by hot molding.

In contrast to standard thermoset boards, the new wood-based composite is able to be post-molded and its surface can be structured in short cycles on standard furniture molding equipment.

The novel wood composites are based on BASF’s new binder technology, acForm. Its application is using Sonae Arauco wood refining technology which is adjusted to be used without any productivity restrictions. Due to the specific binder-fiber composition the composite allows all three spatial axes to be formed at the same time.

“Our new composites greatly facilitate the thermo-molding and thermo-embossing processes, because several production steps, including veneer gluing and layering, are no longer necessary,” explained Dr. Thorsten Habeck, Head of BASF’s marketing unit Dispersions for Fiber Bonding Europe, Middle East & Africa. “This allows much shorter cycle times than separate layering and a significant productivity increase.”

In addition, the composites can be used to produce highly structured or curved components. This opens up new design options for application fields like door and furniture fronts, wall or ceiling linings, room dividers, partition walls in open-plan offices or structured flooring. AcForm also sets new standards in terms of work place health and safety, meeting the most stringent regulations because formaldehyde is not added to the binder system.

The production of 3D moldable composites is using Sonae Arauco’s continuous wood refining technology, ensuring consistency of materials and improved environmentally-friendly products. “The composites are ‘ready to be converted’ materials ensuring higher productivity and lower costs for customers versus current conventional embedded processes such as plywood, deep rooted panels, bended HDF, allowing exhaustive applications in all segments of the furniture and construction market”, says Adelaide Alves, Manager Product Development Sonae Arauco.

The AVK Innovation Award acknowledges innovations in the field of fiber reinforced plastics (FRPs)/composites in four different categories. The award promotes the development of new products/components and applications using FRPs as well as new procedures and processes for manufacturing FRP based products.