Huntsman launched bio based polyurethane foam for automotive acoustic applications

Huntsman announced the launch of ACOUSTIFLEX VEF BIO system – a groundbreaking bio based viscoelastic polyurethane foam technology for molded acoustic applications in the automotive industry, which contains up to 20% of bio based ingredients derived from vegetable oil.

Compared with the existing Huntsman system for this application, this innovation can reduce the carbon footprint of car carpet foam by up to 25%. The technology can also be used for instrument panel and wheel arch sound insulation.

ACOUSTIFLEX VEF BIO system meets the growing demand for material technology, which can help automobile manufacturers reduce their carbon footprint, but still has high performance. Through careful preparation, Huntsman integrates bio based ingredients into its ACOUSTIFLEX VEF BIO system, which has no impact on any acoustic or mechanical characteristics that auto parts manufacturers and OEMs seek to achieve.

Irina Bolshakova, the global marketing director of Huntsman Auto Polyurethane, explained: “Previously, adding bio based ingredients to the polyurethane foam system would have an adverse impact on the performance, especially the emission and odor level, which is frustrating. The development of our ACOUSTIFLEX VEF BIO system has proved that this is not the case.”

In terms of acoustic performance, analysis and experiments show that Huntsman’s conventional VEF system can exceed the standard high resilience (HR) foam at a lower frequency (<500Hz).

The same is true for the ACOUSTIFLEX VEF BIO system – achieving the same noise reduction capability.

When developing the ACOUSTIFLEX VEF BIO system, Huntsman continued to devote itself to developing polyurethane foam with zero amine, zero plasticizer and extremely low formaldehyde emissions. Therefore, the system has low emissions and low odor.

The ACOUSTIFLEX VEF BIO system remains lightweight. Huntsman strives to ensure that the weight of materials is not affected while introducing bio based ingredients into its VEF system.

Huntsman’s automobile team also ensured that there were no relevant processing defects. The ACOUSTIFLEX VEF BIO system can still be used to quickly create components with complex geometry and acute angles, with high productivity and as low as 80 seconds of demoulding time, depending on the part design.

Irina Bolshakova continued: “In terms of pure acoustic performance, polyurethane is hard to beat. They are very effective in reducing noise, vibration and any harsh sound caused by vehicle movement. Our ACOUSTIFLEX VEF BIO system takes it to a new level. Adding BIO based ingredients to the mixture to provide low-carbon acoustic solutions without affecting emission or odor requirements is much better for automotive brands, their partners and customers – - And so it is with the earth.