ISOCO / News
12/12/2022 In Unkategorisiert

Shifting from a linear to a circular economy

Bike Europe December 2022

Shifting from a linear to a circular economy

100% recyclable frames, made in Germany

Isoco specialises in manufacturing high-quality plastic products for numerous industries. Seeing the need for change in the bicycle industry, the Germany-based company is making headlines with its 100% recyclable frames made out of carbon composite material. Is mass-production of European frames closer to becoming a reality? 

V-Frames, the bicycle frame arm of Isoco, produces carbon-composite injected molded frames with hollow volume geometries. This robotised, carbon injected molding technology allows a complete bicycle frame to be produced every 90 seconds. Aiming to cut supply chains from Asia, the company claims to have “the greenest way to produce carbon frames in the world.” Michael Mueller, CEO of Isoco explains more.

What specific problems did you come across when developing the ‘V-Frames’ technology? 

Michael Mueller: Our aim is, with a new material, develop a bike which is lighter than aluminium, which has better mechanical performance than aluminium and which is produced in mass production and 100% recyclable in Germany. So the whole development process of developing and designing such a bike is an ongoing process which we continue to learn about. The second important challenge is how to actually build such a complex mould for a reasonable price to allow mass production in repeatable quality with minimum amount of labour.

What percentage of recycled materials do you use in each frame? 

Right now we use carbon composite material. All of our material that we use currently has 100% recycled carbon fibres from the automotive industry combined with Polyamide. So already all our products we produce today use only recycled fibres. Also, at the end of the lifetime, we guarantee that we recycle our frames. That means we take back our frames and use them for new frame production or new bicycle frame component production. So basically complete circularity; we already use recycled fibres and we guarantee to take back products that we produce with our material.

“We are able to produce frames with 100% re-recycled materials”

Sometimes you add a certain percentage of new material to optimise the technical performance of the bike, depending on the specifications, etc. Do you expect to achieve a complete reduction of virgin material in future? 

Definitely. First of all, the material is extremely long living. For example, some of our customers give a guarantee of 30 years for the frames, so we’re not yet receiving any frames back yet. The moment we get a reasonable amount of frames back, we will, but we simply don’t have enough material back yet. We can produce frames out of 100% recycled material, re-recycled materials even. Of course, it depends on the frame geometry and the stiffness you want to have. We can also make any mix. For example a low step frame will have a different material mix than a diamond shape frame because you have other geometry to measure. Basically anything is possible. We work a lot on the materials so that each specific frame we provide to the customer will have a specific material combination which is optimal for the frame. This, of course, whilst trying to optimise the use of recycled materials, or re-recycled materials. But we have already done it, we can produce frames with 100% re-recycled materials.

How do you arrange the flow of recycled materials, including the collection of used frames? 

Right now, as far as I see it, the bikes are sold by the OEMs and then some years or decades away, they get thrown away somewhere. So there is no circularity at all in the industry for bikes. Our core goal is to change that because it is not sustainable in our eyes. So we have an innovative material, 100% recyclable which can reduce the CO2 footprint of a frame by 68% compared to aluminium. But now the next step is to create the circularity in industry. We guarantee to the OEMs that we will take back our frames and recycle them for new frames or other bicycle components and now the aim is that the OEMs now use this as an argument in the market. They can tell their customers that if you buy frames with carbon composite technology from us, you could get, for example, a voucher of €200 if you buy your next bike from us. In this way the system would change and circularity would become not only for bike frames. We also produce other components, for example cockpits, forks and other components, all with the same technology. For now our system is in place and it’s more about the OEMs. How they are going to implement it in the market and who is really pushing it through? We’ve already had some good feedback from the industry. I think Advanced E-bike is the first one who has really puts this system into the DNA of one of its bikes. I sincerely hope others will follow as the system today is simply not sustainable.

In terms of markets, where is you core focus for the years ahead? 

Europe is 100% the place to be in terms of environmental friendly production, in terms of awareness from the end customers and in terms of the need to implement such a system. We are focusing on how to break the supply chain from Asia to produce everything in Europe; producing ‘just in time’, in unlimited quantities. Also, our target is to produce everything CO2 neutral, with only solar energy from our own solar plant. Europe is therefore our focus for the next five years, but the Americans are to follow for sure; America, Mexico, Canada. This will be the next step on our list. Asia, however is still too far away, in terms of consumer awareness, but also from the price range perspective. So first, Europe and then America.

11/06/2022 In Unkategorisiert

Rigid, impact-resistant and durable small load carriers made from recycled transport boxes and old PET bottles

Press release / 

 

Researchers at the Fraunhofer WKI have collaborated with an industrial partner on the production of injection-molded transport boxes that are more rigid than conventional small load carriers but nevertheless still impact-resistant. For the production, they used discarded transport boxes as well as recycled PET fibers in order to close the material cycle.

 

Researchers at the Fraunhofer WKI, in collaboration with project partner ISOCO Plastics Technology GmbH, have succeeded in improving the performance capabilities of thin-walled components which are manufactured by means of injection molding. The cooperation partners have successfully developed a material that is impact resistant but offers improved rigidity compared to the current series material. For this, they combined higher-melting polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers (as fiber reinforcement) with low-melting polypropylene (PP) in order to create a composite plastic. The researchers tested their material development in the form of a small load carrier (SLC), which is a reusable transport container utilized in the logistics sector. SLCs are currently series-produced using non-reinforced PP.

“The fact that we have been able to produce a stronger and more rigid transport container using injection molding means that it will be possible to use less material in the future. This material saving has ecological and economic advantages,” explained Carsten Aßhoff, Project Manager at the Fraunhofer WKI.

The photo shows three new transport boxes on a conveyor belt.

Furthermore, the researchers have examined and improved the durability of the SLCs, which are subjected to severe environmental and ambient influences during use. In addition to the production environment, in which the containers come into contact with oil or fuel, for example, environmental influences and washing-process cycles at 60 °C with cleaning agents also lead to an accelerated embrittlement of the conventional series material. “These influences make the SLCs considerably more sensitive to impact and shock and lead to damage over the course of time. The damaged SLCs are discarded, as they are no longer suitable for the safe transport of goods. In our project, we therefore wanted to try to close the material cycle; for this, we investigated whether we could use the discarded SLCs as a recycling source of raw materials,” explained Mr. Aßhoff.

The graphic representation shows the material cycle.

For the production of their SLC, the researchers tested the use of already discarded transport boxes as well as recycled PET fibers, for example from non-refillable beverage bottles. For this purpose, they investigated SLC material flows, among other aspects. Suitable PP residues were identified and used as starting materials in order to add PET-fiber reinforcement to the recycled PP.

The project partners also tested the behavior of the materials in cascade use and ascertained what findings could be derived regarding, for example, the material or product quality. Both the newly developed material and the existing SLCs were subjected to comparative testing by means of exposure to UV weathering and high temperature/damp-cold cycles. “The results show that our SLCs are more durable and resistant than conventional transport containers, even though they are made from recyclates,” said Mr. Aßhoff.

The material and process adaptations developed during the research project provide a significant contribution towards improving the material performance, economy and ecology of the reusable container in the expanding logistics sector. The new material could be used, for example, to produce fruit, vegetable and bread containers, fish and meat containers, beverage crates, mail containers, containers for large mail-order companies, or storage boxes for everyday use. The findings could also be applied to numerous applications outside the logistics sector. Impact-sensitive exterior components for the automotive industry, which simultaneously require a higher level of rigidity and strength than a non-reinforced plastic can provide, could also be produced from the new recycled material.

 

Funding

The project “Verbesserung der mechanischen Eigenschaften und Langzeitstabilität von rezyklierten Polymeren durch PET-Faserverstärkungen – rPET2rPo” (Improvement of the mechanical properties and long-term stability of recycled polymers through PET-fiber reinforcements – rPET2rPo) was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) via Project Management Jülich.

https://www.wki.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/2022/PI_2022-07_recycling-small-load-carriers.html

05/16/2020 In Announcements

VELOSIONE returns bicycle frame production to Germany

Commercial launch of the first injection-molded open-mold Carbon City-eBike Frame.

This landmark outcome is result of 5 years of cutting edge development from experts from VELOSIONE, PlasticInnovation and COLEO DESIGN. With the combination of carbon composite materials and fluid molding-technology in injection-molding, VELOSIONE is now capable of producing lightweight, very stiff frames with hollow-tube geometry with until now unseen design-freedom. The frames are 100% recyclable, and have a 50% reduction in carbon emissions during manufacture compared with the current state of the art technology.

General Manager Harald Schweitzer: “We have finally reached a defining milestone in the production of bicycle frames. With our first open-mold Carbon City-eBike Frame, VELOSIONE proves that just-in-time economical production of light-weight, class-A surface frames with very high stiffness in Germany is possible. VELOSIONE produces 1000 frames a day per mold; with a single operator a complete frame is produced in just below 90 seconds, ready for assembly with an excellent surface finish, without welding lines. With high production volumes, VELOSIONE’s production cost drastically undercuts the production cost of traditional aluminium frames in Asia, while reducing the CO2 footprint by more than 50%. At the same time, the frames provide higher stiffness than aluminium frames in comparable geometry. This is a revolution in production technology for bicycle frames. With this, we have brought back bicycle frame production from Asia to Germany, environment-friendly, and in large scales. Our plant in Saalfeld, Thuringia, today already has installed machine capacity to produce up to 3 million bike frames per year. We are looking forward to seeing the extraordinary impact this will have on the industry!”

VELOSIONE commercially launched its open-mold frame ‘CARBON ECOBIKE1’.

Complete test-bikes are also available.

VELOSIONE provides turnkey solutions for OEMs, including frame development, frame simulation, mold design, mold manufacturing, process optimisation and mass production in Germany. VELOSIONE focuses on City, Trekking, Urban and Children eBikes, and exclusively manufactures in Germany.

Requests please to marketing@velosione.com