PARTNER CONTENT
This content was paid for by Bader and produced in partnership with Car Design News
The idea of Bader – a premium leather supplier – launching an innovative vegan and eco-conscious coated textile, alongside its existing sustainable leather products, might come as a surprise. But to meet the new needs of customers and by combining traditional design and craftsmanship with modern technology, that’s exactly what the 153-year-old family-run German business has done
Let’s start by breaking down the meaning of the new material’s Circutex name: ‘Circu’ references the longer word ‘circular’ because the material is made from recycled plastic waste as part of a ‘circular economy’ that reuses old materials to make new ones; while the ‘tex’ part of the word is important because the final product is a coated textile, as opposed to other artificial solutions on the market.
In simple terms, Bader’s process to make Circutex involves taking post-consumer PET-flakes and post-industrial spun fibres, spinning them into a synthetic yarn, knitting them into a textile and then coating it using techniques learned from the leather industry.
“Circutex is a vegan eco-conscious recycled textile that is coated using the same technology as our leather,” Alexandra Dittrich, Bader’s global head of design, begins. “At this point, we rely on the knowhow we’ve gained through years of working with leather. We are able to offer a coated textile with an ultra-thin finish and use the same technologies, chemicals, colour pigments and processing steps as we do with leather. The major difference is that for Circutex we use recycled textile as a base, instead of animal skin.”
68% of the finished product, by weight, is made from recycled materials… a new benchmark for sustainability
Interestingly, Bader’s leather and vegan recycled materials have more in common than you might think, which also helped in the development process of Circutex. “The textile is knitted and has quite a rough surface,” says Dittrich, “under the microscope, you can see that the surface has a lot of tiny ‘hills’ and ‘valleys.’ We drew on our experience with split leather used for steering wheels, which naturally has a rough texture. To make it smooth and flat in preparation for the colour coating, it requires a special treatment. That same technique is applied to our new textile prior to applying the coating.”
Bader uses up to 50% bio-based polymers in its ultra-thin finishing layer too, which significantly reduces the use of oil-based materials. The process is completely free of PVC. An industry-leading 68% of the finished product – by weight – is made from recycled materials, setting a new benchmark for sustainability.
Two types of the new material are available: Circutex 88, logically named because it uses 88% recycled material within the textile part of the product, with the remaining percentage made up of Spandex to provide elasticity; and Circutex 100, which uses 100% recycled material.
“Circutex 88 is good for seats because it’s easy for sewing and stretching over the foam of the seat pads,” Dittrich explains, “while Circutex 100 is a bit stiffer and doesn’t need elasticity if it’s covering dashboards or door panels. But it’s really up to the customer to decide. In the end, it all comes down to the specific part and application itself, the way it’s processed, and what the customer is looking for.”
Dittrich is keen to reassure potential customers that all Circutex products are just as flexible in their ability to be processed and aesthetically embellished as leather, whether through high frequency welding, perforation, embossing, digital printing, embroidery or sewing. Crucially, as Bader can now offer both premium leather and also vegan and eco-conscious coated textile, its design team is able to harmonise the use of leather and non-leather materials together in one automotive interior to a level previously thought impossible.
All of which now makes Bader a flexible and fast single-source provider of multiple premium sustainable automotive material options
“As far as I know, in the past it was never possible to exactly match leather surfaces with existing artificial variants in terms of gloss levels, haptics and especially the colours, because artificial leather uses different pigments and chemicals to real leather products,” says Dittrich. “But since we created Circutex and our leather products with the same technologies, we can have exactly the same matching surfaces.”
“Also,” continues Dittrich, “when we develop new products for automotive clients, speed and flexibility matter. Since we use the same technology as for leather, we can produce small quantities or even A4-sized swatches with custom hand-sprayed colour variants - fast, efficient and with minimal material. Perfect for prototyping bold ideas, without the wait.”
All of which makes Bader an extremely flexible single-source provider of multiple premium sustainable automotive material options – from its already famous leather to its brand-new vegan and recycled coated textile Circutex – or indeed a seamless and beautifully-integrated combination of the two.
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