DURABIO™ for the exterior design parts of Mazda’s Roadstar RF

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Publication date : 19/12/2016

DURABIO™, developed by Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC), is a bio-based engineering plastic made from plant-derived isosorbide. It features excellent performance, offering higher resistance to impact, heat, and weather than conventional engineering plastics. Additional benefits include ease of coloring – DURABIO™ can be simply mixed with pigment to create glossy, highly reflective, and rich hue surfaces – as well its hardness, enhancing durability and scratch resistance. These advantages eliminate the need for a coating process, thereby reducing emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from paints.

MCC and Mazda jointly developed a new grade of DURABIO™ that can be used for exterior design parts without coating. The new grade has been used for interior and exterior design parts of Mazda’s CX-9, Axela, and Demio since 2015, when it was first adopted for the Roadstar launched in the same year. The Roadstar RF is the fifth model to use DURABIO™, and the new grade will be adopted for more models.

MCC will accelerate research and development of DURABIO™, with the goal of expanding applications for automobile interior design parts, of course, but also expansion of its use in exterior design parts, contributing to environment-friendly automobile production.

More information about DURABIO™