Covestro Awarded at Interzum 2017
At interzum 2017, the world’s leading trade show for interior design and furniture production, Koelnmesse in collaboration with Red Dot held it’s ninth annual design competition. At the award ceremony that kicked off the show, Covestro received not one, but two of the coveted prizes as part of the "interzum award: intelligent material & design".
The jury of industry professionals selected the company for an award in both categories. The development of cardyon™, a sustainable raw material for flexible polyurethane foam, was honored with the "High Product Quality" prize, while the InFoam Printing project, which originated at the Covestro Makeathon at Münster University of Applied Sciences, was named "Best of the Best."
Carbon dioxide as a useful synthesis building block
cardyon™ is a new Covestro raw material for flexible polyurethane foam that contains the greenhouse gas CO2. Up to 20 percent of the fossil raw materials used previously have been replaced by carbon dioxide in this product. A special catalyst lends the molecule the required reactivity. Covestro brought a production plant for the raw material on stream at its site in Dormagen last year. Already available commercially, it is a precursor for foams used in mattresses and upholstered furniture.
Closing the carbon cycle
"By using the product as a synthesis building block, the CO2 is returned to the value chain and the carbon cycle closed," said venture manager Dr. Berit Stange. "This also reduces the consumption of fossil resources. cardyon™ thus offers a solution for greater sustainability in the mattress value chain."
A life cycle analysis showed that the carbon footprint of this polyurethane raw material can be reduced by up to 15 percent compared with a conventional precursor. Furthermore, the quality and characteristics of foams made with cardyon™ are easily on par with those of their purely petrochemical-based counterparts.
Creative design with plastics
Creative minds can be inspired to come up with completely new ideas if they are familiar with the properties of plastics. Covestro has therefore set itself the goal of imparting its product knowledge to designers while at the same time gaining a better understanding of their needs.
"In addition to existing contacts with industrial designers, we’re also increasingly approaching talented university students," said Rebecca Heil, who is in charge of the designer network and idea.lab at Covestro. One special project aimed at encouraging this dialogue was the Covestro Makeathon, which the company held for the first time last year at Münster University of Applied Sciences.
Influencing specific foam properties
One of the results was an idea for the robot-assisted injection of polyurethane systems into flexible foams. The inventors of the process, Dorothee Clasen, Sascha Praet and Adam Pajonk, continued working on their idea as part of a collaboration project with Covestro. They researched how to produce structures inside foams and alter the properties of foams in specific spots.
This method could be used, for instance, to improve the properties of upholstered furniture and mattresses for sitting or lying down by providing different firmness levels in a single foam element.
Find out more
At Industrial Design Day, to be held during the event by the German Association of Industrial Designers (Verband Deutscher Industriedesigner - VDID), Rebecca Heil will be giving a presentation in Hall 4.2 at 3 p.m. on May 16 that also offers insight into this project.
Both award-winning developments will be on display in a special exhibition on interzum’s trade show boulevard and shown in the online exhibition at http://www.interzum-award.de
For more information, please visit www.covestro.com.
