Röchling Automotive SE - Winner of the JEC Composites Innovation Awards 2024 -Category Automotive & Road Transportation – Process

First impressions after the winners announcement, expectations for the future, developments to come, Dr. Felix Behnisch, Röchling Automotive SE Worms
Michael Wilhelm, Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology ICT
and Dr. Michael Janssen, Röchling Industrial SE & Co. KG were at JEC World in Paris and took some time to answer our questions !

More about the project:
Reactive PA6 Pultrusion: Boost for TP Composites
Röchling Automotive SE (Germany)
roechling.com/automotive
Partners:
• Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology ICT (Germany)
• Röchling Industrial SE & Co. KG – Haren (Germany)

Reactive thermoplastic pultrusion enables the production of cost-effective and highly resilient automotive components. The profiles are integrated in the final part by injection or compression molding. The PA6-based composites allows simple recycling in without dismantling.

The innovation is the use of in-situ pultruded PA6GF profiles for cost-efficient composite parts in the automotive industry. The combination of a highly efficient production for the reinforcement elements by using continuous pultrusion with state-of-the-art injection molding allows a production at low cycle time and costs. The achievable fiber content of the pultruded profiles is higher than for alternative reinforcements and due to the same plastic material for injection molding and the pultruded profiles, the whole part can be recycled without any dismantling operations.

Key benefits:
• Cheap Processes and Raw Materials
• Sustainable – Just a Single Polymer
• Strong by Design and Reinforcements
• Light due to Material Savings
• Flexible use in Diverse Applications