With its eyes set on the huge potential for polycarbonate glazing to penetrate the Japanese automotive industry, Bayer MaterialScience AG has announced a regional technical cooperation agreement with injection molding machinery maker Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Plastic Technology Co. Ltd. and mold maker Kyowa Industrial Co. Ltd.
Under the terms of the agreement, which is limited to automotive glazing application developments, the partners will use a 1,450-metric-ton Mitsubishi all-electric two-component press with a reversing platen to run customer trials in Mitsubishi's new technical service center in Nagoya, Japan.
Leverkusen-based Bayer MaterialScience will contribute its materials know-how and supply its specially developed resins for two-component injection molding of large glazing components. Mitsubishi and Sanjo City, Japan-based Kyowa will provide machine and mold technology.
“We see excellent growth opportunities worldwide for polycarbonate automotive glazing, particularly given the increasingly strict emissions regulations in all leading industrial nations,” said Volkhard Krause, head of the global automotive glazing team at BMS.
BMS claims that the use of PC can halve the weight of parts such as panorama roof panels, resulting in fuel savings and reduced carbon-dioxide emissions. Design freedom also is improved over glass, while the company claims that functions such as defogging, antennae and infrared protection can be integrated within the manufacturing process.
BMS already runs a large-scale automotive glazing production cell at its BayVision glazing technical center in Leverkusen.
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