By guest author Iris Schlomski, Editor-in-Chief of Textile Network
With woven tapes made of flax, Vombaur makes the functional and ecological advantages of natural fibres available for lightweight design.Sustainability: Woven tapes made of natural fibres.
Flax fibres are particularly rigid and tear-proof. Textiles made of the natural material therefore give natural fibre reinforced plastic (NFP) special stability. Additionally, flax has a low density. The components thus combine high rigidity and strength with low weight.
- Another functional plus: natural fibre reinforced plastics are less prone to splintering than glass fibre reinforced plastics.
Sustainable material
The cultivation of flax binds CO2 and the production of NFP generates 33 % lower CO2 emissions than conventional fibre reinforced plastics. The energy consumption is 40 %lower. This reduces production costs and improves the material’s CO2 footprint. Punch-packing arguments for natural fibre tapes – like flax tape by Vombaur – in lightweight design applications.
Circular Economy
Circular Economy – this also works in lightweight design. The number of recycling cycles without loss of quality is higher for natural fibre reinforced plastics than for glass or carbon fibre reinforced plastics: the thermoplastic matrix of the composite can be melted and recycled after a product life cycle. The natural fibres can “live on” in other products – injection moulded products for example.
Tomislav Josipovic, Sales Manager Vombaur: “Composites from our flax tapes are used to reinforce high-tech skis as well as for extruding state-of-the-art window sections – the applications are countless. As a development partner, we support applications for the automotive, wind energy, construction, sports and many other industries with our composite textiles.”
Vombaur is a specialist for seamless round woven narrow textiles and known throughout the industry as a development partner for filtration textiles, composite textiles and industrial textiles made of high-performance fibres. Technical narrow textiles by Vombaur are used on the one hand for filtration – including in the food and chemical industries. They are used as high-performance composite materials in aircraft construction or medical technology, for example. For technical applications, Vombaur develops specially coated industrial textiles for insulation, reinforcement or for transport in a wide variety of industrial processes – from precision mechanics to the construction industry. The company from Wuppertal, Germany, founded in 1805, currently employs 80 staff. For 2020, a turnover of more than EUR 10 million is expected. Export turnover is at 44 %.