Covestro is tackling monomaterials as a pillar of its circularity goals in automotive and electronics applications to help customers design parts and devices that are easier to recycle at end of life as it invests in R&D operations globally.
The material supplier created a design guideline with requirements for its customers, partners, technicians and application developers to create examples of ways monomaterials can be used, Tim Lemacher, key account manager of engineering plastics at Covestro, told Plastics News, a sister publication of Rubber News, at the Fakuma trade show.
Components and products with different textured features and parts including films and overmolding can be made of one single base material, Lemacher said, such as polycarbonates or acrylic, making "more or less the whole device … out of the same class of material."
At Fakuma, Covestro showcased a control panel application for its monomaterial PC, Makrolon. The panel has PC films on either side with overmolded, integrated printed circuit boards connected to Covestro's new thermally conductive PC, which creates the panel's touch functions.
"The disassembly process is getting easier," he said, thanks to overmolding allowing for easy removal of printed circuit board and other electronic features.