Environmentally friendly auto production is gaining traction. In the newest example, Mazda has used Mitsubishi Chemical’s Durabio bio-based engineering plastic to produce exterior design parts for the newest Mazda Roadster RF

Building on its ambition to contribute to a more environmentally friendly car manufacturing process and with its sustainability goals in mind, Mazda Corporation has adopted MCC’s Durabio bio-based engineering plastic for the exterior design parts on its latest sports car, the Roadstar RF, introduced on December 22, 2016.

Durabio, developed by Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, is a bio-based engineering plastic made from plant-derived isosorbide that typically can replace polycarbonate. 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.