Solvay, a leading global supplier of specialty materials, has announced a major expansion plan to complement its broad portfolio of composite materials for the automotive industry.
SolvaLite ® 714 Prepregs are a new generation of unidirectional carbon fiber and woven fabric products pre-impregnated with SolvaLite ® 714 epoxy resin. These innovative prepregs offer fast cure cycles, long service life, and are optimized for manufacturing automotive components such as body panels with short compression molding cycle times in continuous production runs.
"Our new SolvaLite ® 714 prepreg has been specifically developed to ensure product stability in large industrial compression molding processes and to provide excellent structural component performance," said the person. "They are available in a variety of unidirectional carbon fiber reinforced and woven fabric formats."
SolvaLite ® 714 prepreg is currently produced in Europe and will be available globally starting in the second quarter of 2022.
In addition, Solvay has recently invested in Xencor ™ LFT (Long Fiber Technology) production capacity enhancements. The investment includes new manufacturing assets and additional capacity at Solvay's Oudenaarde plant (Belgium), as well as the expansion of research and development resources at one of Solvay's technology centers in Alpharetta, Georgia.
Xencor ™ LFT is one of the key pillars of Solvay's lightweight product portfolio, which also includes short fiber composites and continuous carbon fiber composites.
Xencor™ LFT opens up new lightweighting potential for aluminum die-casting alternatives for next-generation electric vehicles. This includes several areas of metal replacement, such as braking and steering, electric drive units, inverters and battery module protection.