Outside of Hall 6 Bayer and Rinspeed are showing off the za-Zen, a concept car of 2006. This car sports a 6 mm thick Makrolon (PC) roof-structure, a self healing PUR coating and a base coating with tiny Swarovski crystals. The seats and the rear lights made of Makrolon, this car shows the versatility of PC in automotive applications.

Dr. Christian Bonten of BASF received the Richard-Escales-Prize from the VDI-K (German Engineers Society - Plastics) and Hanser Publishers for his contributions to the field of plastics technology and industrial design. Dr. Bonten was the founder of the DesignFabrik (Design Factory) at BASF and is the Business Manager for Terlux. In addition to his BASF activities, Dr. Bonten teaches Plastics Technology for Designers at the University of Duisburg-Essen, and as a hobby studies and advises in the field of plastics restauration.

At the Bayer MaterialScience stand one can see an injection molded Makrolon panoramic roof with a Bayblend (PC/ABS) underpart for a Smart fourtwo. With this material and design Bayer helped Smart save on 40% of weight when compared to the glass counterpart. This roof design will resist up to a 600 lb load.

Fourtwo panoramic roof (Photo Erik Foltz)

The LKT stand at the K2007 is displaying an impressive process that manufactures strong, low friction plastic gears. In conjunction with several industrial partners they have developed a process in which a glass filled polyacetal gear’s teeth are overmolded with an unfilled polyacetal, resulting in strong teeth with low surface friction. The fiber filled system is injected into the cavity first, followed by sliding the gear into a neighboring space that leaves the gap used to inject the unfilled POM.The LKT gear (Photo Erik Foltz)