Lifestyle
Sustainable and lightweight material solutions for anything you can imagine
Overcoming the conventional
Could flax fibre composites be used as a more sustainable alternative to conventional composites and plastics?
Already proven in the unrelenting world of automotive, motorsport and the equally challenging arena of ultra-high-end furniture, Bcomp’s innovative ampliTex™ and powerRibs™ solutions are ground-breaking carbon-neutral composite reinforcements made entirely from flax fibre.
Sustainable product design
Cultivated across Europe, flax is an indigenous plant that has been part of the agricultural industry for centuries. With low water and nutrient requirements and little need for pesticides and fertilisers, it is a popular rotational crop with excellent utility – useful for feed, making flax oil, and its fibres can be used in textiles.
ampliTex™ and powerRibs™ make the most of flax’s inherent mechanical properties, creating composite parts with high stiffness, resistance to breakage, torsion, and compression – perfect to form the shell of tough and sturdy luggage or high-end consumer electronics. Using appropriate care and processes, Bcomp’s materials also offer a flawless surface finish, suitable for luxury product applications.
Benefits
Large-scale production
Bcomp has worked tirelessly and collaborated with key players from the industry to ensure that our material solutions are fit for large-scale production and industrialised processes. ampliTex™-PP and powerRibs™-PP are compatible with both compression moulding processes for highest performance and injection moulding for simplicity and easy implementation into one of the most widely used production processes.
Customisable aesthetic
With a variety of weave and colour options, ampliTex™ is guaranteed to fulfil your wishes for sustainable design options. And with the possibility to completely customise and tailor our beautiful natural fibre composites to customer needs, your imagination is the only limit between you and the future of sustainable interior design.
Circular solution
On top of being naturally renewable materials, Bcomp’s thermoplastic ampliTex™-PP and powerRibs™-PP products offer circular opportunities to large-scale industries. Production scrap which is inevitable can be recycled into a new base material for different applications (injection moulding) or can be fed back into the production process for components like directly attached fasteners and local reinforcements.
A Few Customer Highlights
They trust in our high-performance solutions to work towards a cleaner future.
Circle One is HORIZN STUDIOS’ European-made sustainable luggage range, harnessing ampliTex™ in its BioX technology, a patented hard-shell luggage innovation. With a much lower carbon footprint than carbon fibre or aluminium – including energy consumption in manufacture and use of a bio-based resin – BioX is one of the most sustainable hardcase luggage materials on the market.
Sustainable high-end luggage from HORIZN STUDIOS
The REI chair is a testament to the incredible build, surface and finish quality that can be achieved by using Bcomp’s ampliTex™ technical fabrics. Learn about how Tras Ltd., a Japanese composite company with a background in motorsport, has made its signature high-end designer chair far more sustainable.
Tras’ REI chair beautifully showcases Bcomp’s ampliTex™ fabrics
Switzerland Wins the Jaguar Innovation Medal at London Design Biennale 2016 – The jörg boner design studio collaborated with Bcomp for their contribution to the exhibition. Combining ampliTex™ flax fabrics and natural resins with LED technology resulted in the creation of a unique lamp design.
ampliTex™ at the London Design Biennale
Sustainability
powerRibs™ and ampliTex™ are made from flax fibres that grow naturally in Europe without competing with food crops. By optimising the properties of the fibres mechanically and through fabric architecture, less material is used. At the end of their life, parts can be ground down into a new base material or used for thermal energy recovery without residual waste in the standard waste management system.
Unique design opportunities
- Beautiful aesthetics and new lighting opportunities with ampliTex™, thanks to its natural translucency
- Endless colouring options and varying architectures
Sustainable fibres
- The flax fibres are CO2 neutral over their lifecycle
- High mechanical performance reduces amount of material needed & weight in end-product
- Thermal energy recovery within municipal waste management system at end-of-life
- Good resin flow capability reduces the amount of consumables needed during production
Technical advantages
- High vibration damping improves comfort and reduces noise transmission
- Radiotransparent and non-conductive
- Same CTE as carbon fibres, allowing for hybrid layups
Manufacturing Process
Compression moulding
Not only do ampliTex™-PP and powerRibs™-PP have a substantial positive environmental impact, but they also deliver practical benefits for large-scale production. Easily integrated into existing compression moulding lines, the technology can simplify manufacturing by eliminating certain steps. For example, creating parts with a perfect visual surface directly out of the mould allows to forego additional steps like the application of traditional cover materials. Furthermore, the possibility of implementing a one-step back injection process for local reinforcements and fasteners further enhances efficiency, allowing the solution to comply with tight time restrictions in mass production settings.
Injection moulding
The character and soul transmitted by the natural appearance of ampliTex™, can easily be combined with the simplicity of an injection moulding process. Used as a customisable visual layer, ampliTex™ can replace traditional petrol-based cover materials with a renewable alternative while guaranteeing highest ease of use as a drop-in layer in your injection moulding process. This simple compatibility with one of the most widely used production processes, really allows OEMs and Tier 1s to easily embrace the sustainable design perks of ampliTex™ without having to worry about added complexity.
Resin transfer moulding
Dry ampliTex™ and powerRibs™ reinforcements are fully suited to resin transfer moulding manufacturing processes. This opens new doors for parts manufacturers from all sectors to take advantage of the countless aesthetic opportunities and sustainable lightweighting benefits of our natural fibre composite solutions. Let us help you to replace glass and carbon fibres with a renewable and beautiful alternative.
Vacuum infusion
ampliTex™ and powerRibs™ natural fibre reinforcements can be used in vacuum infusion processes in the same moulds as carbon or glass fibres. The powerRibs™ grid adds another significant benefit to the manufacturing process as its properties make the additional flow media superfluous. This means that by switching to a natural fibre layup with ampliTex™ and powerRibs™ or a hybrid layup of carbon or glass fibres with powerRibs™, you can significantly reduce the use of consumables and therefore waste from production. Our experienced team of engineers supports our clients from idea to final product, to assure the best possible outcome.
Get in Touch
Get in touch with us to discuss how our sustainable lightweighting solutions can help you decarbonise your products and move towards a circular solution.
Want to Join the Team?
Are you looking for a unique opportunity? Come and work with us! Bcomp is always looking for talented and experienced individuals that want to join us on our journey towards a circular economy and contribute with their technical and practical knowledge.
News
Applications
Our high-performance material solutions build on the exceptional properties of renewable flax fibres to replace standard engineering materials in areas from automotive to mass transportation and from motorsports to luxury yachting and sports without sacrificing any performance.
Automotive
Our solutions for large-scale automotive interior and exterior parts enable exceptional weight- and plastic reduction while introducing completely novel design opportunities.
Mass Transportation
Buses, trains, subways, and airplanes – thanks to our specialist products like fire resistant ampliTex™ natural fibre reinforcements, the benefits of sustainable lightweighting that have already convinced the automotive industry can also have an impact across the full bandwidth of mass transportation.
Motorsports and Supercars
Match the performance of carbon fibres with natural fibres thanks to our proprietary motorsport solutions. Improve safety and vibration damping while reducing environmental impact.
Sports
Natural fibres for enhanced performance and feeling. Sustainable and lightweight, our ampliTex™ flax reinforcement fabrics enable innovation in sports gear by increasing performance, delivering a signature feeling and reducing environmental impact.
Marine
From kayaks and sailing boats to ultimate luxury yachts, we provide beautiful, sustainable and vibration damping material solutions for both interior- and exterior applications.
Lifestyle
Luggage, designer watches, consumer electronics and luxury furniture, our sustainable natural fibre materials are extremely versatile and offer a distinct and customisable natural beauty and aesthetic while adding functional benefits.
Infrastructure
From bridges to entire building facades and interior structures, our ampliTex™ and powerRibs™ solutions can create architectural objects with extraordinary design and aesthetics while using a renewable material instead of conventional fossil-based materials.
Let’s Decarbonise the World Together!
You want to learn more about how our sustainable lightweighting solutions can help you decarbonise your products, you have a burning question, or you just want to send us some love – then wait no longer and get in touch.