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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - COBAS (CUTTING-EDGE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY TECHNOLOGY ENABLING THE PRODUCTION OF EXTREMELY DURABLE PLASTIC COMPOSITES, REINFORCED BY BASALT FIBRE)

Teaser

Summary

Our company, AFEX GmbH (https://www.afex-kunststoff.de/) is a leading German manufacturer of high-grade components from various plastic materials (PA, ABS, PC, PPS, PPV, PEEK) for the professional automotive (VW, BMW, Audi, Bentley and others), medical and consumer goods industries which are sold in more than 27 countries in Europe, America, India and Asia. In 2013-2017 we developed an advanced plastic material based on basalt fibre fillers (uncoated) to be branded as COBAS allowing significant improvement of plastic productsâ€™ properties.
We conducted the current SME Ph1 project with the general objective to demonstrate the technical and business feasibility and the specific objectives a) to determine the acceptance for the new materials and their prices, b) to search for potential suppliers of nano/micro basalt fibres, c) to calculate the production cost, d) to check the IPR options and e) to prepare the business plan to the Ph2 application. Based on the feasibility assessment and the updated business plan we concluded that COBAS has good potentials to succeed from both technically and economically, hence the final development steps are worth to pursuing within an innovation action project.

Work performed

The key aspects supporting the conclusion and the possible impacts are summarized below:
- There is a clear need for our cutting-edge technology which produces the original plastic components by injection moulding from initial original composite granules doped with chopped basalt fibres.
- The market research of potential suppliers of nano/micro basalt fibres shows that the average price of a kilo of chopped basalt fibre is reasonable, hence the production cost of polyamide parts will increase not more than with 0.5-6%. The price increase for customers can be ~10% that is fully acceptable by the market.
- The targeted application fields are hunting cartridge cases, mobile phone holders, circuit components and pedals/handles of luxury cars
- COBAS can respond to the market needs in Germany, France and Sweden in 2 years after the market entry, in other Western European countries, Norway, Russia and Southern Africa in 3-4 years after the market entry, while at global level (with special focus of the rest of Europe, US and Middle East) in 5 years after the market entry.

Final results

- With the need-based plastic components and an excellent pricing strategy, the target markets can be serviced while we can achieve an acceptable margin in 5 years after the market entry (ROI: 350%, EBITDA: 6 mâ‚¬).