COMPOSITES | LFTs
Right: Akro- Plastics’ Thilo Stier shows off the KTM FE 350 Rockstar edition seat structure, which is produced in its Akrolen Next PP LFT, a 10% glass reinforced grade produced from circular PP based on waste cooling oil
our [compound] approach and it’s the same for our LFTs,” he says.
Automotive is the main market for traditional
PP-based LFTs but, while Lehmann & Voss has automotive LFT applications, it is not its key target market. “We are not in the commodity business of LFTs, the dashboards or door-panels. This is mainly polypropylene and it’s all about pricing. Big volumes but we are not in that, Collet says. “We are in the performance area that starts from polyamide 12, 66 and so on. And also the bio- based materials. And there will be more to come on the high performing polymers – materials where it will be even more niche but still very interesting. PPAs as well as high temperature polymers are our interest in this area,” he says. Collet believes compounders such as Lehmann
& Voss are well positioned to grow in the specialty LFTs sector due to their scale and flexibility. “If you look to the volumes [for LFTs] it’s thousands of tonnes and for us that’s a big volume. We are a compounder, so we never talk about millions of tonnes of materials. A new application where we are maybe in the area of five tonnes or 10 tonnes, or maybe 20 tonnes, that could be a reason to create a new product.”
Specialty compounders also have the market know-how to understand where LFTs will make a difference for customers. ““It’s not that people come to you and say: ‘I need this or that material’. It’s more that you have to introduce the material to them and you need to develop a specification for field testing and part testing and so on. We have colleagues that are very skilled in in this. They know where LFTs make sense and they can really pick out the interesting markets and applications,” he says. This insight is reinforced by the diverse nature of the company’s end users. Collet cites applications in markets as diverse as industrial and sports and
30 COMPOUNDING WORLD | March 2023
leisure, where it supplies materials for ski binding and cycle parts. “The bike area is a very interesting market to us regarding LFTs because of the polyamide 410. Consumers are getting more and more sensitive about carbon footprint,” he says. “In the future everybody in compounding will have to develop the carbon footprint data and that’s what we are already doing.” LFTs are untypical in the Lehmann & Voss
product portfolio in that all grades are manufac- tured at its HQ in Germany (most other products can also be produced at its sites in North America and Asia). “The lines we have here have maybe more equipment than other people. We make it possible use two different fibres, to have several additives in one product, and to also to vary the position where we feed in materials,” Collet says. “We get a very good impregnation of the fibres
and that’s key to performance of LFTs. You may think this would happen in the injection moulding machine but the screws you typically use do not add this kind of performance. So, it is really key that the product is made well and that everything is distributed well,” he adds.
Metal substitution
Another specialty compounder making headway in the LFTs sector is Feddersen Group company Akro-Plastic. “LFT compounds provide excellent mechanical properties so they are ideal for metal substitution and light weight, so lowering carbon footprint,” says Thilo Stier, Global Sales Director and Innovation Director. “They are very supportive of market demand.” Stier says automotive, transport and industrial
are the most interesting markets for the company, with weight reduction the main driver. “The extreme high mechanical performance gets better than the same formulation with short fibres. For example, the energy uptake dart impact is two to three times higher.” While LFTs remain a more costly material option than short fibre compounds, he says the combina- tion of performance and ongoing work to maxim- ise sustainability aspects makes them appealing to many end users. He highlights the example of sustainable formulations based on biocircular PP, as well as high performance blends such as the company’s polyamide/PP blend LFTs that are designed to offer PA-type performance with a significantly lower carbon footprint. Stier also sees its IP in LFTs as a differentiator. “Our biggest advantage is the production line that is co-developed with our sister company Feddem,” he says. It allows the company to offer a broad
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IMAGE: AKRO-PLASTIC
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