Arkema at Viva Technology 2018
With the spotlight on four themes – green tech, electronics, 3D printing, sport –, Arkema showcased, together with 12 of its partners, a range of its latest innovations in these areas.
At Arkema, we believe in open innovation, whether by looking out for complementary expertise in universities or other higher education establishments and in basic research laboratories, or by cooperating with many technological and industrial partners.
For the past 7 consecutive years, we are among the top 100 global innovators, connecting energies, talents and ideas to create value at the service of our customers.
Through interactive experiments on our stand, you were able to discover our innovations around 4 themes.
Sport
How our materials contribute to the top sporting feats? Whether in running, football, skiing or athletics, Pebax® technology has become indispensable on many sports fields and helps all sportsmen and -women stretch their limits.
This material boasts outstanding properties, including energy return and flexibility, while being much lighter than the materials traditionally used in sports shoes.
The bio-based Pebax® Rnew® grades combine performance with environmental sustainability.
Electronics
Electronics and innovation are closely connected, as illustrated on the Arkema stand.
Generating electricity through pressure, or conversely, deforming an object through an electrical impulse? Our piezoelectric solutions showed it, for example with a connected floor (in partnership with Joaneum Research, an Austrian research institute) and a "talking book".
The tactile interfaces we are now so familiar with are poised to evolve further: thanks to haptics, they will become ever more interactive and flexible.
It was the opportunity to discover advances to come in augmented and virtual reality in the shape of a connected glove (in partnership with Novasentis, a company specializing in haptic technology).
The dashboard of tomorrow’s car will see its physical buttons and manual controls replaced by tactile interfaces combining plastics and electronics (in partnership with CEA Tech, the technological research department of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission).
Green Tech
Arkema’s innovations are at the service of a more sustainable development.
Used as components of white paint, our Kynar® fluorinated polymers, thanks to their durability and UV-resistance properties, help reflect ultra-violet and infra-red rays in summer, and so minimize the warming of buildings, hence reducing energy costs related to air-conditioning.
Kynar® PVDF can also be used for the ultrafiltration of air and water. For example, our latest generation Kynar® PVDF based filters (developed with our partner Polymem) work to eliminate 100% of the contaminants and impurities from water, as well as 90% of the viruses.
3D Printing
Over and above prototyping, 3D printing has become a reliable, increasingly faster production method for manufacturing series parts. Arkema develops a wide range of high performance materials (resins and powders) adapted to the constraints of the various 3D printing technologies.
The complementary mechanical properties of our materials help produce a raft of objects: functional technical parts, decorative parts, custom-made parts, in small or medium runs for the aerospace, medical or automotive sectors.
The possibilities that our solutions offer are large, in particular with live printing, and the showcasing on our stand of large parts revolutionizing the world of advertising (models printed with the unique technology of our partner MASSIVIT, to manufacture massive parts in record time).