Evonik: CoverForm® Competence Center Opens for Hands-On Innovation

In cooperation with machine builders KraussMaffei, Evonik Industries has achieved a milestone in plastics processing ‒ the CoverForm® system solution that enables the manufacture of injection-molded plastic components with a functional surface in just one step.

The CoverForm® Competence Center was opened in Darmstadt on Novermber 18, 2009, and offers a hands-on experience of this highly innovative process. “With CoverForm® we are introducing a future technology together with KraussMaffei that is the result of a successful development cooperation arrangement,” said Gregor Hetzke, President of the Performance Polymers Business Unit of Evonik Industries at the inauguration of the CoverForm® Competence Center.

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KraussMaffei developed the machine technology for the process, based on the company’s extensive expertise in injection-molding and reaction technology. Evonik developed the required product combination of a specialty PLEXIGLAS® molding compound (PLEXIGLAS® cf molding compound) and a precisely adjusted multicomponent solvent-free reactive system on an acrylate base for the functional coating. Dr. Karlheinz Bourdon, Managing Director of KraussMaffei, emphasized at the opening ceremony: “Together, we two partners have developed an entirely new, integrated process named CoverForm®, which enables us to offer a very convincing solution to our customers that significantly reduces the production costs of transparent components with a scratchresistant coating.”

The new CoverForm® system solution substantially cuts the fabrication costs for scratchresistant and chemical-resistant plastic components since they require no subsequent timeconsuming and costly coating. CoverForm® produces plastics parts that are ready for installation when they leave the injection machine.

At the trade show MATERIALICA, CoverForm® therefore received this year’s MATERIALICA Design & Technology Award and the “Best of Award” in the category Surface & Technology. CoverForm® is of interest wherever the aim is to achieve particularly high surface functionality, like scratch resistance. This may involve applications in the automotive and lighting industries, in optics or in communications and display applications.

Plastics fabricators can now experience the process for themselves at the new CoverForm® Competence Center in Darmstadt. But the center has even more to offer. “We will also use the competence center to further develop reactive systems,” explained Sven Schröbel, CoverForm® Project Manager at Evonik. “New antireflective or electrically conductive coatings are also conceivable, for instance. And we intend to train our global technical service staff at the CoverForm® Competence Center too.”

As a first step, CoverForm® will be launched on the European market. The USA and Asia will
follow from 2010.

Photo: Dr. Karlheinz Bourdon Managing Director of KraussMaffei (left) and Gregor Hetzke, President of the Performance Polymers Business Unit of Evonik Industries at the inauguration of the CoverForm® Competence Center in Darmstadt, Germany.

More Information: www.coverform.de, www.evonik.com, www.kraussmaffei.com

Evonik Industries AG, Essen

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