Green flame retardant PP-fibre

A novel flame retardant technology for PP-fibres based on Swedish technology can see the light of day in the near future thanks to financing from Mistra Innovation. Scale up and commercialisation is next on the agenda.

The dominating synthetic material in fabric production is polyester. The project aimed to evaluate the feasibility for using PP fibre for specific applications in for instance truck and car interiors. Apart from excellent environmental footprint PP has another major advantage in the automotive sector. Most other interior parts are moulded from polyolefin based materials, introducing PP fibres in the curtains and interior panel would greatly simplify recycling.

That is in addition to the lower density that would make weight savings of up to 30% possible on fabric components. The conclusions are based on pilot test runs at Swerea/IVF and testing with industrial partners Borgstena Group – specialized in fabric applications for trucks.

Mistra Innovation is a program that connects Universities and Institutes with small and medium sized enterprises. FlameR was running over 2.5 years with a total funding of approx 550 t€ with the purpose of evaluating the possibility for modifying PP-fibre with the Paxymer green flame retardant technology. University of Borås and Swerea/IVF were the main research partners. The industrial partner group consisted of SKS, FOV, Saab Barracuda as well as Borgstena Group and Paxymer AB.

“We are very proud of our achievements in the project” says Amit Paul, MD Paxymer and project manager “Being able to confirm the viability of the Paxymer system in the fibre application is a big step. Light weighting, ‘one-material’ concepts to simplify recyclability and improving the environmental footprint are important questions especially in the automotive industry at the moment. We will now be going into the next phase of industrial scale up and optimization where we are open to collaborate with new industrial partners.”

/Paxymer AB