What are the most important approaches you use to make your auxiliaries and chemicals more environmentally friendly and sustainable?
We are pursuing several goals in this regard. Our first aim is to reduce the use of toxic or hazardous substances as far as possible. Secondly, we are working on replacing hazardous substances with more environmentally-friendly substitutes. And, thirdly, there are, of course, the already mentioned improvements to the efficiency of the auxiliaries used, i.e. enhanced efficiency to cut the consumption of resources and materials in our processes. A new and additional focus in our R&D activities is the targeted reduction of emissions, which we have already successfully implemented for some of our new products. We’re talking in particular about VOC, BTX, phenol and formaldehyde here.
Which of your sustainable technologies stand out particularly for you?
Our inorganic binding agents deserve to be mentioned first. We’ve been using Inotec technology for 12 years now. Initially, nobody actually believed that it would replace conventional processes. But 10 years on, it can be said that many new casting concepts would not have been possible without our inorganic binding agents. In addition to the purely environmental aspects that were the original aim, many other technological and economic benefits have become apparent – which have made them a permanent feature in gravity die casting with light metals. Potential also exists for iron casting but implementation still has its limitations.
Our Ecocure Blue for iron casting is the world's first phenolic resin for the cold box process that is doesn’t require statutory labelling (in accordance with CLP, the European chemicals regulation). So it’s no longer regarded a hazardous material. In addition to the environmental benefits, it has also benefited application technology, for instance, with its particularly high reactivity, which allows the use of binding agents and catalyst quantities to be reduced.
I would like to finally mention water-based coatings. They’ve basically become the state of the art at many automotive foundries. However, water-based coatings may differ from each other. Water is only the carrier liquid for the multitude of individual components that make up a coating. It’s above all the pinch of salt and pepper that ultimately decides whether parts customers have manufactured require reworking or have to be rejected. With our Miratec TS coatings, we’ve taken a decisive step towards meeting the demands in regard to residual dirt that the industry is making, i.e. in regard to how clean engine castings are. Advances with water-based coating technologies are even being made the field of large castings where the use of alcohol-based coatings has long been state of the art. Foundries are switching due to occupational-safety and environmental concerns with the added benefit that the change-over is also associated with reductions in energy and storage costs (explosion-protected areas).