Covestro and polyurethane manufacturer Arcesso Dynamics for designer Thomas
Schnur has created an injection-molded material for chairs. This material has the look and feel of solid materials without many of their limitations, opening up new possibilities for furniture design.
Mission Objective: Addressing the Design Challenges of Solid Surfaces
German furniture designer Thomas
Schnur was looking for the right material for an original chair, bringing a new look and feel to the furniture industry. The task was to design a modular chair base and seat shell offering exciting new combinations of materials, colors and functions. With this original chair, the aim is to demonstrate the potential that the Arfinio® material brings to various furniture design specialists.
Challenge: Create an injection moldable solid material
To overcome these design constraints, it was necessary to find a material that had a solid look and feel, but could be produced monolithically using reaction injection molding (RIM). This approach enables the development of truly seamless components in an industrialized manner.
Material development is between Covestro and polyurethane manufacturer Arcesso
Key challenges facing Dynamics. The materials used in conventional RIM production are made from aromatic polyurethanes, which require coating and are poorly light-stable. This makes them difficult to repair and limits their potential applications. However, until recently discovered, RIM was the only possible process for applying this chemistry.
Joan Miquel García Martinez, Senior Project Manager, Covestro
Said: “This design chair is another milestone for the Arfinio® material. We hope it will show designers what is possible with this technology for furniture, and we look forward to working with them to bring these new designs to life.” middle!”
Solution: Injection Molded Materials with Solid Surfaces
Covestro and Arcesso
Together, Dynamics has adapted the RIM process to aliphatic chemistries—something previously thought impossible. Using this process, they created the Arfinio® material, a material that combines the advantages of solid surfaces and injection molding while overcoming their limitations.
Injection molding makes it easy to produce complex shapes quickly and cheaply, simply by adjusting the shape of the mold. Their truly seamless nature means the pieces have no structural weaknesses and are therefore more durable. The RIM process also makes Arfinio® lighter than traditional solid surface materials, so less material is required per piece. In this way, furniture designers can significantly reduce their creative constraints.
As a single material, Arfinio®-based furniture can also be collected, crushed, and recycled into new products at the end of its useful life, helping furniture manufacturers achieve
“close the loop” to improve the sustainability of its industry.
DesignerThomas Schnur
Said: “Thanks to the use of Arfinio® instead of traditional solid surface materials, this designer chair is lighter and stronger. This allowed us to combine function and structure with ideal form and volume. It also created a soft, depending on the specific desired functionality. I’m interested to see how designers will use these advantages in other furniture and product applications!”
Arfinio®materialKey Benefits
Design Freedom: Injection molding process makes creating complex shapes simple
Truly Seamless: Arfinio®-based furniture is made from a single material, eliminating structural weaknesses
Lightweight: Arfinio®-based designs are 50% lighter than standard solid surfaces
Repairable and recyclable: As a single material, Arfinio® is recyclable and easily repairable by sanding
Superior haptics: Arfinio®-based furniture is warm, smooth and pleasant to the touch
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