Plastics are crucial materials in the electrical industry, which need to fulfill functions such as insulation and protection. Therefore, they must possess characteristics such as high heat resistance, flame retardancy, and excellent mechanical properties. Currently, this field mainly uses fossil-based plastics such as polyamide and polycarbonate. The research on related biobased alternative materials is still in a blank state.
On February 12th, the Fraunhofer UMSICHT Institute in Germany announced that the two-year "HighTechPLA" joint research project has recently been launched, aiming to develop a biobased high-performance compound based on polylactic acid (PLA).
The "HighTechPLA" project will use the technical components with extremely high requirements for heat resistance and impact strength in the electrical and electronic industry to verify their performance. Its goal is to provide a biobased alternative solution for the commonly used fossil-based plastics (such as PA, PC and ABS).
This project targets a significant market: In Germany alone, the electronics and electrical industry processes approximately 1 million tons of plastic each year. The participating enterprises plan to replace 10% of the fossil-based plastic in their products with the new materials under development in the short term (if the research and development is successful), and their long-term goal is to achieve a complete transformation of their product lines. This will significantly contribute to the industry achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and meet the growing demand for sustainable solutions. Moreover, after the completion of the project, its outcomes are expected to be extended to other industries.
The project team is currently studying and optimizing the correlation between the crystallization behavior, impact strength, and flame retardancy of the developed materials. This is crucial for systematically resolving the existing target conflicts and requires a deep understanding of the structure-performance relationship of PLA-based compounds. Only in this way can solutions with industrial application value be provided for technologies with all the necessary performance.
The Fraunhofer UMSICHT Institute is using copolymerization technology to develop customized impact modifiers and further process them within the framework of compound development. Additionally, the institute precisely controls the crystallinity and regulates its morphology by adding other additives (including nucleating agents).
The upcoming structure-performance model will be capable of conducting actual simulations of formulation adjustments and process settings, and will also undergo testing on actual production equipment. The close integration of material and process development aims to ensure that the production cycle is comparable to traditional production conditions and to guarantee the economic feasibility of the process.
This project brings together research and industrial expertise throughout the entire value chain: additive development, compound production (Fraunhofer UMSICHT Institute, FKuR Kunststoff GmbH), injection molding and component manufacturing (Georg Schlegel GmbH & Co. KG, Bodo Ehmann GmbH, Werner Langer GmbH & Co. KG, LED Linear GmbH). This combination enables the rapid and effective conversion of project outcomes into marketable products.
This research was commissioned and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR).
