Thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) specialist Geba Kunststoffcompounds (Ennigerloh / Germany; www.geba-plast.com) has signed a cooperation agreement with Bayer MaterialScience (BMS, Leverkusen / Germany; www.bayerbms.com) to develop and manufacture reinforced TPU (TPU-R) based on BMS’s “Desmopan” TPU. Geba will market the new materials as “Desmovit”.

Soft Desmopan grades have so far been used for two-component injection moulding, back-injected films and slush skins. Reinforced TPU combines durability with impact and heat resistance and linear expansion coefficients similar to aluminium. BMS expects the incorporation of reinforcements – initially glass fibre and in the medium term including reinforcing materials such as glass beads, talc, chalk, iron powder and carbon fibres – to extend applications to areas currently dominated by engineering plastics.

According to Bayer, possible applications include the manufacture of heavy-duty housings for electrical goods and household appliances and functional components for sports equipment and toys, where high reliability is required. Other potential areas of application are agricultural machinery, industrial products and automotive engineering.

BMS and Geba have been collaborating since 2003 on the production of compounds for automotive slush skins.