DSM Palapreg® ECO bio-based resin wins awards

DSM Composite Resin’s 55% bio-based resin Palapreg® ECO has recently won two innovation awards.

Frost & Sullivan awarded the resin its New Product Innovation Award in the Automotive Industry prize for responding to the key industry challenge in reduction of the harmful impact of fossil-based raw materials to the environment. Frost & Sullivan stated: “There is a clear need for moving away from traditional non-renewable raw materials to renewable sources; in order to be successful in the global automotive plastics market, companies are forced to develop bio-based polymers with a very high renewable content.”

The DSM resin was also awarded first prize for innovation in the Raw Materials category at the China Composites Expo, Beijing, on 15 September 2010. Palapreg ECO was displayed at the show in the form of a new kayak model designed by TAHE Marine, a kayak manufacturer based in Estonia.

DSM Composite Resins launched Palapreg® ECO in April 2010. According to DSM, the resin not only matches the performance of petrochemical based materials in the market, but in some applications it even outperforms some of the best conventional, oil-based plastics systems. The company says the level of bio-renewable content of the product could eventually be raised to 100%.