From April 23 to 26, FORVIA Freya Group and its subsidiary MATERI’ACT made its debut at the CHINAPLAS 2024 International Rubber and Plastics Exhibition.
As a new entity launched by Freya to develop and produce cutting-edge sustainable materials on a large scale, Mai Jirui demonstrated its technology products in many fields of sustainable materials at the exhibition, thus revealing its layout in this field.
Photo Source: Freya (same below), why is Mai Jirui here? In November 2022, Maijirui was founded in Europe to develop, purchase, produce and sell unique cutting-edge materials with a low-carbon footprint, ultra-low carbon footprint and 85% lower carbon dioxide emissions compared with existing carbon-based materials.
In 2023, Maijirui entered China and plans to distribute Inicycled-P, Inicycled-S PCR modified plastics and NAFILean bio-based filling modified plastics in the Chinese market.
These materials will be widely used in automotive interior decoration, seats, headlights, exterior decoration, as well as some building materials and sports equipment, to meet the increasingly stringent carbon reduction needs of automotive, construction, consumer goods and other industries.
In fact, as early as more than a decade ago, Foggia was already working on the development of raw materials, but as Jin Mingqi, director of R & D of Foggia Automotive Interior Division in China, said in an interview with Geographic and other media, at that time, Foggia put more emphasis on realizing the lightweight of products, including the application of bio-based materials in parts to achieve lightweight effect.
But now, in addition to lightweight requirements, companies are also facing more and more stringent carbon reduction requirements.
According to Freya’s plan, from 2045, it will achieve carbon neutralization in all ranges (“range one”-“range two”-“range three”).
(note: scope 1 refers to direct greenhouse gas emissions, scope 2 refers to indirect greenhouse gas emissions generated by electricity, and scope 3 refers to other indirect greenhouse gas emissions.
), Jin Mingqi said that Freya achieves carbon neutralization mainly through three aspects: the first is the emission reduction of manufacturing, the second is the emission reduction of products, and the third is the emission reduction of the industrial chain.
Among them, products, industrial chain and materials are closely related.
He further explained: “first of all, Freya will reduce carbon emissions in the manufacturing process by using green electricity and green energy, while at the same time making the products thinner and lighter, reducing the carbon of the products.
The key point is that the raw materials of our products come from plastics.
we need to put low-carbon raw materials into our products in the industrial chain in order to achieve the group’s vision goals.
that’s why we make this kind of raw materials.
” Of course, carbon reduction is not a single corporate behavior, it reflects the trend of the industry as a whole.
Under China’s “3060” dual-carbon target, the automobile industry is now facing a higher demand for carbon reduction.
Jin Mingqi pointed out that in the passenger car sector, compared with 2030, 2040 and 2050 will face 60% and 90% carbon reduction requirements respectively.
“although it is not a regulation, it is a target.
” This is why more and more clean energy or recyclable materials are used in this market.
“according to him, at present, many mainframe factories require that the proportion of recyclable materials and bio-based materials fluctuate at least 20% in the use of raw materials.
Because through this 20% can achieve lower carbon emission requirements,” according to our vision, this proportion will increase in the next 3-5 years.
It may gradually rise to 30%, 40% or even 50%, and only when this ratio is reached can the country reach the 60% or even 90% carbon reduction target.
” There is no doubt that this provides more motivation for Maijirui to go deep into the field of sustainable materials.
What achievements have been made? It is reported that after following the three principles of “use less, use better, and last longer”, Maijirui has planned three major material areas, that is, its three major product lines: modified materials made from renewable and recycled materials.
skin fabrics made from bio-based dermis substitutes.
carbon fibers used in hydrogen storage bottles.
At this exhibition, Maijirui focused on its sustainable solutions in two aspects of modified materials and skin fabrics.
In terms of modified materials, the Plastic Odyssey door panel of Mai Jirui’s debut in Asia uses Ocean Bound Plastics (OBP) marine plastic.
The car door panel uses blue engineering plastic instead of black oil-based material, which is made of Plastic Odyssey material and oyster shells collected from the beach.
The door panel demonstrates the ability of FORVIA Freya and Maijirui to use up to 20 per cent of marine plastics when producing compounds for a range of high-performance applications and highlights their ability to integrate recycled plastics into existing car interiors.
IniCycled is a sustainable compound that can be used in visual or non-visual components and contains 20%, 80% of the recyclable ingredients.
Through the advanced lightweight injection molding process, IniCycled can achieve high quality surface decoration effect.
It is said to meet the processing and color requirements of demanding automakers.
NAFILean-R consists of 20% natural flax fiber combined with 100% recycled polypropylene matrix.
It brings together the essence of two fields, on the one hand, renewable fibers, which can reduce carbon dioxide and improve mechanical properties, and on the other hand, the integration of recycled materials can achieve a circular economy and produce a very low carbon dioxide footprint.
Compared with other industry standards, this material not only reduces weight, but also reduces carbon dioxide emissions by up to 87%.
NAFILean Vision is a kind of composite material specially developed for exterior decoration.
It has a great degree of freedom in design.
It can integrate a variety of biomaterials (hemp, wood, Reed, olive kernels or oyster shells) as well as recycled plastics from a variety of sources (from post-industrial and post-consumer plastics to scrapped cars and marine plastics).
NAFILean Vision can achieve complete recycling and provide a variety of tones and textures to create advanced decorative effects.
According to Jin Mingqi, NAFILean is currently used in 80 cars around the world, and Inicycled P and Inicycled S have also been put into use abroad, and will also be used on the models of many international car companies in China this year.
In terms of skin fabrics, Maiji Rui thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) is a low carbon dioxide emission surface coating (skin) and can be used as a substitute for leather and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
Pi ñ atex Advanced can provide a high-end solution instead of leather.
It uses recycled pineapple fiber as a surface coating and is made of up to 60% renewable materials.
Can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 90% and reduce weight by 25%.
How is the progress of localization? Under the move that Mai Jirui entered China and brought a lot of innovative materials, it attaches great importance to the Chinese market.
However, Maijirui did not seem to be very smooth at the beginning of its entry into China.
Jin Mingqi said frankly that at first, Maijiri did encounter some challenges.
He said that the core of Maijiri’s work in this industry is to reduce carbon, and the core of carbon reduction comes from the upstream.
In the whole industrial chain, Maijiri has done mid-stream cleaning, granulation and downstream production.
But in the upper reaches, take the Chinese market as an example, nearly 83 million tons of waste plastic come out every year, and its categories are uneven.
“Why do we keep pushing back? we are looking for a company that is strong and can supply high-quality waste plastics for a long time.
We did not find such a company last year.
” But as he said, “this year is different.
” It is reported that in April this year, Foggia and Gree Electric Appliances signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation.
Accordingly, the two sides will set up a joint venture before the end of this year to jointly develop, manufacture and sell recycled plastics to create high-level sustainable material products and achieve the sales target of 150000 tons of compounds by 2030.
create sustainable programs for automobiles, home appliances and other industries.
When asked about the development expectation of recycled plastics, Jin Mingqi said that in the past two or three years, the development of recycled plastics is not as fast as expected, because the automobile market lags behind.
Cars usually take two to three years from design, planning to listing.
If the time span is extended to five years, it will be faster than expected.
“it is a parabolic upward trend, in front of which preparation is carried out, and then improvement is carried out.
” In his view, this is also the core reason why Freya, as a parts company, chose to invest in sustainable materials in 2022.
“if you invest again when the slope rises, it will be too late.
” those clean, traceable waste without a lot of impurities are resources in themselves, and these resources are limited.
” Today, through vertical integration and in-depth cooperation with upstream and downstream, Maijirui is strictly managing and tracing the upstream raw materials, as well as the carbon footprint of the materials.
provide downstream customers with high-performance, low-carbon, traceable sustainable materials products.
According to Maijiri’s plan, it will localize raw materials and processes with major partners in every region, including China, and will be able to meet the needs of global automakers carrying out projects in China.
And meet the diversified needs of local automakers.
, return to the first electric network home page >.
