Covestro: “Material should be functional but also bring sentimental value”

Emily Shi, global business development manager for Colour and Aesthetics & CME Engineering Plastics: 

First of all, let’s start with the properties of the material itself. Cars increasingly require lightweight solutions but a certain degree of durability and resilience, including for example infrared protection. The material becomes a complement to the design function. Increasingly, the car is a means of transportation to take us from home, to the office and then as a third living space. When it becomes a living space, that brings with it an emotional requirement.

We used to see lots of cars with more of a commercial characteristic, whereas now we increasingly see cars expressing more of a home atmosphere – and sometimes an indoor-outdoor atmosphere. To express this, we need CMF that blesses the surface treatment of coloured materials. It shows that the material is not only functional but also has some sentimental value.

For Covestro’s CMF solutions, we look at it from all dimensions to provide innovations across the board. Here we have some of our annual colour trends on show. We are also targeting recycled materials to propose what kind of CMF should be used and how we can target each region with CMF solutions that can be adapted to local characteristics.

We apply these materials holistically, meaning the product can be recycled all in one piece

Matthew Chen, industrial marketing manager, Mobility China, Engineering Plastics at Covestro: Our scientists help automotive customers achieve their sustainability goals. We have developed a range of low-carbon solutions including physical recycling, materials for chemical recovery and biomass recycling. These are greatly improved and extremely low-carbon footprint and we combine these sustainability solutions with CMF.

This way, even if the customer requires a low-carbon technical solution, we can allow customers to experience the aesthetic sense our solutions have to offer. We have not only innovated aesthetically but also apply these materials holistically to integrate with the customer’s technical solutions in a range of products. This means that the product can be recycled in the end all in one piece. This dramatically reduces the overall product’s CO2 footprint throughout the life cycle.